Last night my sons cleaned and polished their shoes and lined them up neatly in front of the balcony door. This morning we woke up to squeals of delight and the munching of chocolate. St. Nicholas had visited us last night and left sweets for good children. (Mine had been preparing mentally for sticks too, which is what he brings to the naughty children, and had been trying to rationalise that sticks would be quite useful for art classes at school and for our fireplace at home).
Two years ago, while we were still living in the UK, my sons had some issues with the fact that St. Nicholas did not visit their classmates. http://sandaionescu.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/st-nicholas-is-an-unfair-racist/ I thought we would be safe this year, but it turns out that in this part of France bordering Lake Geneva, the old man is not particularly active either. (He is more active in the north of France, particularly in the Strasbourg area, and in German-speaking parts of Switzerland).
So there we are again, facing that dilemma that so many multicultural or expat families have: which traditions do you maintain and, if you create your own family ones, how do you justify them in front of your classmates? And is it too greedy to take a bit of everything to celebrate?
It suddenly dawned on me that most Christmas traditions come from Northern countries, such as Germany, Austria, Scandinavia. Which makes sense, instinctively: in places where the days are short and cold, you want to cosy up inside the house and therefore introduce many customs to keep the dreariness at bay. So the question is: how far south can you go before these traditions become - well, just a little bit meaningless and even bordering on ridiculous? Reindeer in Australia, anyone? Christmas tree on the beach in Rio?
