Oh so many good holiday treats to write about. And I don’t just mean the vin chaud (hot wine) and churros (not sure why we’re having churros??) at the Christmas market.
Quick intro into some differences between the French and American Christmas:
- Santa does not say “Ho Ho Ho” … I think this probably because the French “h” is silent. As my friend put it, “So what creepy silent Santa just sneaks down your chimney??”
- Rudolph is not really a big deal, no red nose or anything. Basically the song “Must Be Santa” which my Grandma plays every year at Christmas is becoming totally irrelevant
- They do not do stockings, and are mildly confused by why we leave our socks for Santa (though they do sometimes leave wooden shoes)
- Ummmm sandess, they do not leave milk and cookies for Santa!
My American friends and I have been totally confused because, since there is no Thanksgiving, Christmas celebrations don’t start until December 1st. I’ve been listening to Christmas music like crack and waiting for them to turn on all the lights. That being said yesterday was December 1st and … goodness, it was magical. The city was invited to the main square to see Santa turn on the Christmas lights with the Mayor (fancy!). Oh right, I forgot to mention the whole reason I knew that Santa was coming to Angers was because Remi, this adorable 10 year old in one of my classes, invited me to go see Santa with him. Heck yeah, you know you’re liked when the kids invite you to see Santa! And so yes, we arrived to see Santa (pulled by sleigh dogs!) giving the “key” to the Mayor to turn on all the Christmas lights. It was awesome, with snow falling (which is a rarity in Angers), skinny French Santa working alongside the mayor and a few lucky kids. All the lights illuminated including a 35-foot Christmas tree, then Santa and the Mayor naturally threw out candy. It was really everything I could have hoped for from my French town at Christmas, and now it all stays around until the end of the year.
Last week I was lucky enough to celebrate not just one, but TWO, American Thanksgivings. My friend Sean came up from Grenoble and we enjoyed a potluck Thanksgiving with other assistants which was rockin’. Its amazing how the food alone can make you feel so at home (and so homesick). I mean I had to work all day but I brought the joyous event of making hand turkeys to French schools, so all is well. Then over the weekend, my friends and I made a delicious gourmet Thanksgiving to show our French friends how America does cooking (gravy with two sticks of butter, duh!). All in all, it was impressive considering French supermarkets don’t really sell turkeys, or cranberries (my cranberry sauce was shockingly delicious and consisted of dried cranberries, Ocean Spray cranberry cocktail [found in the foreign section of course], raisins, and oranges all boiled together… thank you Mommy Niemann for teaching me how to improvise!). We had four small chickens, mashed potatoes, veggies, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mushroom gravy, pecan and pumpkin pie. ALL FROM SCRATCH, from four girls who mostly didn’t cook for themselves before this year. And we got to introduce our Australian friend to sweet pumpkin pie. Culture all around! Our friends were surprised that we served everything at once and naturally the Americans thought … well duh that way you can mix it all together, eat way too quickly, and feel ridiculsouly full all afternoon… isn’t that Thanksgiving? And we also made them hold hands and say the things they were thankful for. Really, I couldn’t have pictured it any better.
That’s it for me now! Time to get some real work done – aka drawing pictures for our classroom advent calendar, sometimes being a teacher is FUN!
The Christmas lighting event sounds magical. Esp. since you had a hot date! haha Did you take pics?
ReplyDeleteWay to go on Thanksgiving!! So impressed! We missed you, hut it was nice that you called while we were eating because it was like you were with us!
Take care!