The many days of "Father Christmas"

Not only do we have Sandy Claws visiting on the 25th, but we also have the celebration of Saint Nicholas on the 6th of December. It seems to happen in every commune around here. Saint Blaise pulled out the stops and it seemed like the whole village was here, in the 'Temple' next door. A couple of weeks before, pictures were mailed to all the children to colour in and bring to Saint Nicholas. The boys did a lovely job (ofcourse I didn't take a pic) and we duely got in 'line' (more of a life threatening crunch) after the children's choir sang a couple of French Christmas ditties. We quickly realised that we would be there for at least half an hour, so we went home for dinner (raclette in honour of the evening) and watched everyone around the church, through our living room window. It's great being so close to everything! We went back and got into line with 2 people in front now, one of whom we know, so we had a wee chat. Saint Nick wasn't looking too good. He huffed and puffed his way through the boys and looked relieved when they didn't say much. They got the goodies, though. A bag of peanuts, a tangerine, and apple, a wee chocolate santa and a "pain d'epice". It's rather like spongey gingerbread, but with other spices. Yummy with tea. Toby doesn't like waiting or trying to open the nuts by himself, so he eats them shell and all. I wish he was potty trained.

We finally got to see the inside of the church, which was full of choir and children. The bedragled chap beside St. Nick is Père Fouettard. If a child has been bad, he gives them branches.... I think he's supposed to beat
them with them.


Allie says a lot of "Oui" to Saint Nick.


Toby grudgingly holds out for the bag o'goodies.



The weekend previous to this, we went to the NIC Chidren's Christmas party. Hosted at beautiful Pierre-a-bot (again), we had a super time. I had to 'work' a craft table, though. Children could paint plastic baubles to take home. Very cute idea. It replaced mine of sno' globes in baby food jars (thanks to Evro for that one), because 'the glue would be too messy'. It turned out that the paint stained and it was more fun to paint the table. It was an interesting look into parent/child interactions and such. Parent #1 became very impatient when other children were 'hogging' the colour their child wanted, Parent #2 completely left a very young child , who then ate a bunch of paint and smeared the rest on his Christmas frock. Parent #3 got really quite angry when I accidentally smeared a bit of the bauble that he had meticulously painted himself. And so on :) After crafts, it was time to meet Father Christmas/Santa Claus (as it was on the form). We had a from to fill in for each child to meet Santa. We had to write something about what the child had done well on and something about what they 'could improve'. I couldn't think of anything to put in the 'improve' category ;)

Given the right pointers, Allie yabbers away happilly.


Toby is a little more... skeptical


After Santa came, some games helped get the children down from their sugar high.
Musical statues, an old favourite, which Allie won!


We took a little walk and saw the sun setting on the alps. Sorry, this pic has a crane in it, but it was just before the sun left them.



I had to put this up:
Bedtime!


Sadly, we missed another visit with Santa today as Allie has an eye infection. Poor boy. Just as long as FC brings us the Laffertys on Christmas eve.....