Jingling All the Way to Vacation!

A (semi)quick post before Christmas break:

Teaching about Christmas (I opted not to do the Hanukkah lesson) went pretty well. There were, of course, the inevitable questions like “Does Santa really exist?” and “How does Santa get in if you don’t have a chimney?” and of course the more cynical “Santa doesn’t exist. My parents buy me presents.” I think my favorite comment though was when we were talking about the elves who make the presents and a really little kid got super excited and yelled “and they also repair shoes!”

Various highlights of the last couple weeks:

-Alex mastered the art of mulled wine which was a nice treat for everyone.

-The recording of “Jingle Bells” that one of my teachers has is actually a cd of French children singing christmas songs. It’s pretty hard to teach a group of kids a song when the example they’re learning from is a mumbled mess that sounds more like “mudsfjnjuenwjjdneuajhuewjfh” rather than “oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh”

- Last weekend Alex, Tommy and I decided to go to the movies. Keeping things interesting as always, Tommy decided that rather than sneaking in a bag of candy, he would sneak in a roast chicken. Additionally, once we settled into the theater, as the aroma of roast poultry permeated the dark room, Tommy whipped out his sunglasses—the only prescription glasses he owns—and explained he needed them to see the movie. We’d had a good amount of mulled wine just before so both Alex and I passed out in the middle. The sight of the three of watching the movie, two sleeping and one wearing sunglasses and eating chicken, may have been more entertaining than the movie itself.

-Alex lost his keys again (which have since been retrieved) and this time the replacement key they gave him was the master key to all the rooms on our floor. So naturally we went on a little treasure hunt into the rooms next to mine that are marked “reserved for theater”. Most of the rooms were pretty boring with random tables and broken chandeliers, but we struck gold with the costume room and now are left only to think of some genius way to put them to good use.

-As a little Christmas celebration before we all parted ways, the assistants and the teachers (or at least Estelle and Aline) went out for Kebabs one night. Everyone was getting on very well, and we had a fun time training Tommy to act more straight in preparation for meeting his boyfriend’s family. (“How do you think I feel? Betrayed, bewildered…”)

-I went to see Alex play in the winter concert with the St. Dié Orchestra. It was perhaps the strangest concert I’ve ever been to. It had a little slide show going on the whole time (like a youtube video of a song accompanied by a quasi-related photo montage) and the encore was a rendition of the YMCA complete with village people costumes donned by various musicians and the conductor. Not exactly the nutcracker or Handel’s Messiah, but certainly entertaining.

Tomorrow it’s off to Basel to meet up with the fam. Hopefully everything goes well, but apparently whenever Europe gets a little bit of snow they freak out and cancel all their flights. So, things could be getting a later start than expected but in any case I’m still really really excited!!!!!

Festivals of Lights

First things first: Happy Hanukkah!

As possibly St, Dié’s only current Jew, I tried to do my part with this little makeshift menorah and potato pancakes. I also tried to make a dreidel, but that didn’t turn out so well. They don’t have gelt here, but I did buy some really delicious seasoned olives from the marché as a little Hanukkah gift to myself.

Now, onto Christianity: Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Today was officially the holiday but most of the festivities took place over the weekend (and they gave us all St. Nick brioches in school on Thursday which was a tasty little surprise). I’m still a little hazy on the details of his story, but I know it involves a butcher who chopped up (and maybe ate?) a bunch of kids who St. Nicholas then brought back to life. And from there he become the protector of children and then went on to be santa claus—simple enough.

In any case, there was a big parade Saturday night to celebrate it. I walked into town with Alex but he was playing with the orchestra so when he went off to join them, I went and got some mulled wine and took in the festive atmosphere. Almost immediately after I had found a nice little spot to stand and watch the parade, a gaggle of really obnoxious pre-teen girls invaded. But by then the street had really filled up and as someone under 5’ and over 20 years-old, a place which offers visibility is too good to pass up.

The parade was pretty substantial, with bands and floats from a wide range of towns and associations. Some were pretty random like a Shrek float and lots of people who had just stuck a bunch of branches onto themselves and were walking around as trees. (We later found out that this year’s theme was forests which explained a lot. Also, forests was the theme at the FIG this year—coincidence ? I think not)

Because of the poor quality of my camera, it looks as if I attended a ghost parade, which is actually kind of a cool idea.

After the parade, we heard there would be fireworks over by the Cathedral. I was expecting a couple of sparklers but what came next was a SUPER impressive display. I’m talking better than Needham 4^th of July fireworks for those of my readers who know what that means. Combined with the epic music (and ignoring the accompanying narration of how St. Nicholas got lost in a snow storm trying to find father Christmas and then realized that he was father Christmas) it was quite the spectacle. I’d even go so far as to call it MAGICAL.

As we made our way home we made a little detour through the newly-opened St. Dié Christmas market which is small but charming nonetheless, and got some more mulled wine to warm our thoroughly chilled appendages.

Cultural note: Christmas here is pretty much exactly the same as it is in America. Though one main different is that here in France, rather than St. Nick having to deal with the nice and the naughty alike, they have kind of a good cop, bad cop system. So St. Nick can save face by being the nice guy who gives the good kids their presents while “Père Fouettard” (father whip-man) mercilessly beats all the naughty kids. And according to Hannah and Tricky, the Austrians have the same idea. So all you nasty American kids who get the coal—just be happy you don’t live in Europe!