Sunrise Christmas Morning 2022

I rose up early in the morning to photograph the sunrise of Christmas 2022. I checked the hour for the sunrise online and wanted to get the golden hour.
It may come as a surprise to many that Christmas in Brazil (here, Southern Brazil) is a moment of green colors. Yes, Christmas is celebrated during the summer. 
The giant pine tree is an Araucária Paranaensis, a species related to the Norfolk pine. It only grows in this region of Brazil and also Argentina and Chile, in the same latitude. 
This is Christmas for me. I have had the privilege of experiencing a "white Christmas" in my childhood in the US, but, most of my Christmases are nice warm or hot days.

It is funny to see Santa Clauses in winter apparel while we are in the summer here. But, that also shows how much the European  culture is predominant in this region. Here there is a majority of Italian descendants,  besides German, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Portuguese (of course), some Spanish descendents that have amalgamated into the Gaúcho culture, and, the most important of all – the Kaingang people.

The Kaingang live in the three southern states of São Paulo, Paraná, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul (where this picture was taken). They are more than 30,000 in population today.

Brazil is a rich, vast, country with so much to experience.