The Arrival of Père Noël

Christmas. Usually such a busy time for us, this year was quiet, slow and sweet. The towns and villages were filled with “marché de Noël”, selling anything you could ever imagine wanting to eat, and lit signs were strung across the roads proclaiming “Bonne Fêtes!”

Trying out a Provençal tradition, on December 4th we planted wheat in a dish. According to local lore, if the wheat grew strong and tall by Christmas, it would be a prosperous and healthy year ahead. The wheat did grow strong, and lush and straight, and so Bronwyn, in the spirit of giving, suggested it could be put into use as some new hair for Dave.

In order to fulfill the French tradition of gastronomical excess at Christmas, we decided to indulge in as many traditional Christmas foods as humanly possible. On the list; champagne, oysters, foie gras, turkey, chestnut stuffing, marzipan, chocolate. As everyone really does say around here, Oh la la.

To gather supplies for the feast, on Christmas Eve morning we headed over to a nearby village, Fayence, which has a very good Provençal, Saturday market. As soon as we arrived in Fayence, we spotted “Père Noël” running through town, and so we chased him down. Much to the girls’ chagrin, Père Noël was only handing out wee Clementine oranges. Would the genuine Père Noël be so tightfisted?

That evening, Christmas Eve, while Dave and I ate oysters and drank champagne, and the girls sipped chocolat chaud, we all selected socks from Dave’s winter collection 2005 to hang by the fire. Hannah prepared an elaborate note for Santa/Père Noël in two languages with several places for him to sign, in order to test him and see if he was really the multi-lingual, global Santa/ Père Noël that we assured her he was. Guess what? He is.