Yesterday we sowed the wheat seeds that will, if we’re lucky, germinate in time to serve as a grassy mat for the nativity scene on our mantlepiece. It’s a local, provençal tradition that signals the approach of Christmas and the New Year. Not only is the wheat sown to serve in the crèche, it’s germination is also said to bring good luck: blé bien germé, prosperité toute l’année. The signs are everywhere, not just in the dish on our mantel, that Christmas is coming.
We are not in Kansas anymore. Every village has its own set of lights and its own interpretation of the holiday, and I have not seen any repeats. Valbonne, across the valley and over the hill, has strung white and blue stars across its narrow pedestrian streets; the white stars alternate lighting up with the blue. Along the main road through the village there is a string of white light bulbs that swings between the plane trees, and a sign over the road that wishes all who pass beneath it Joyeuses Fêtes. Biot, on the far side of the valley, went Valbonne one better: its illuminated sign across the main road reads: Le Village de Biot Vous Souhaite des Bonnes Fêtes, while Mougins, home to a lot of English expats, chose Mougins Vous Souhaite Joyeux Noel Happy Christmas, for those non-French speakers who don't have time to consult a dictionary while driving.
Up the hill in Le Rouret, the church is outlined in blue lights and the sign between the church and the town hall is trimmed in quantities of white tinsel: Joyeuses Fêtes, but this time in block letters instead of the more staid and evidently traditional cursive. Opio, our nearest village, chose the tasteful, understated 2009 in lights over the first rond point, and Bonnes Fêtes over the second. The Opio church tower is outlined in lights, and, at the top of the tower, there is a--probably it is a star, but really, it looks like an asterisk, or an enormous jack from a child's game, and each spoke lights up in turn until they are all lit, and then it flashes a few times before going dark and beginning again.
The merchants at the rond point where we are regular customers all pooled together for their decorations. They took plastic mineral water bottles and cereal boxes and wrapped them in red and gold shiny paper, and strung them from the evergreens. They covered the plane trees with blue flashing lights and fat red tinsel garlands. They hung Santas from every possible place-- windows, lamp posts, archways--an addition that is somewhat startling if your (American) Santa climbs down the chimney from the rooftop instead of up the house on a rope or a ladder, as does Père Noël. When the nylon Santa dolls, clinging to their ropes or ladders, twist in the wind, it is hard not to think of Billie Holiday singing Strange Fruit, and if you are looking for cultural dislocation, well, there you are.
The overall effect at our shops was of decorations done by slightly intoxicated preschoolers: irregular, awkward, asymmetrical, unselfconscious, joyous. Even the Santas. Wherever the merchants bought the first few Santas must have sold out, because they are all different, different material, different sizes, even different shapes. So I think that there was not a plan for this last July, or ten Julys ago. They went out and bought what they needed, when they needed it, and if they could get by without buying something, then they did. No Christmas decoration catalogue came in the mail from Kansas. No one with an MBA did a study that showed that we would all spend more money if there was an extra Pellegrino mineral water bottle wrapped in shiny red paper and dangling from a tree. Decorating for Christmas is an American import, I know, but it has changed into something very French: beauty and decoration for their own sake, not for profit.
And what of the food? To judge from displays in the hypermarché, everyone in France will be consuming a steady diet of foie gras and champagne until sometime in early January. It’s not just in the shops: there are traiteurs and chefs and who know who else who, this time of year, do a steady business in foie gras. They have typed brochures that get handed round, listing the amounts of foie gras they have for sale (and you can buy your foie gras in virtually any quantity you can imagine, from an apéritif for two portion to everyone you know coming for dinner). Champagne, too: I know of not one but two local companies that, even in these dire economic times, have not given up the group champagne order. Everyone who wants to stock up on champagne puts an order in together. The larger the order, the deeper the discount. I suspect that the world would have to get a whole lot darker before champagne and foie gras for the holidays disappeared.
And it is dark. These days, the afternoon sun drops quickly. Darkness falls well before even an early dinnertime. It’s good, then, to see the festive displays in the grocery store, the shiny tinsel in the trees, the Santas blowing in the wind. Driving home in the gathering dusk, we can see the village churches across the valley, each of them illuminated a little differently. We drive under the sign strung haphazardly across the center of our village round about, and it sways back and forth in the breeze. Bonnes fêtes, it wishes us. Happy Holidays to you, too.
