Anyone who had a birthday at our home was allowed to linger a bit longer in bed while the rest of the family prepared them breakfast. There is another fun tradition among family and friends in Brazil: if you celebrate a birthday, you get flour and eggs thrown at your head.
I was the youngest of my siblings and my brothers always did this to me as a child. The main aim was to get a few eggs to hit the head. This would make the flour really stick to the hair. Washing it all out really took a lot of time and patience. Especially if the eggs had been left in the sun for two or three days beforehand, then it really smelled bad.
While I played for FC Bayern Munich we were at the training camp in Marbella, Spain, when it was my teammate Roque Santa Cruz's birthday. He comes from Paraguay so of course I had to seize the opportunity to try out this beautiful Brazilian custom on him.