Grand Saint Nicolas

Before they go to bed tonight, all of my students will carefully lay out their shoes, accompanied by a few carrot sticks, and sing a song inviting Saint Nicolas to come and leave them lots of candy and gingerbread while they sleep.  If they've been good, they'll wake up tomorrow to find their shoes overflowing with sweets, and if they've been bad, they'll find only a bundle of twigs, left by the evil butcher in the Saint Nicolas legend, Père Fouettard.  According to the story, Père Fouettard lured away three children and butchered them, salted them, and hid them away in a tub in his shop.  Saint Nicolas came to their rescue and restored them back to life, and Père Fouettard was doomed to follow Saint Nick around for the rest of time, probably so someone could keep an eye on him.  I mean, what a nutter.

Apparently, while the holiday is celebrated throughout many European countries, there are only a few regions in France that recognize it.  Fortunately, Saint Nicolas is the patron saint of Lorraine, so people here go crazy for this holiday, meaning that even Bar-le-Duc was a jivin' place this weekend.  A temporary Christmas market was set up (eat your heart out, Strasbourg) where I had my first vin chaud of the season.  When I went up to the booth to order it, the old man serving me asked, "Un petit?" and held up a glass the size of a dixie cup. 
     I looked at it with dismay.  "Uhh, non, un grand...." I said.  His eyes widened in surprise.
     "Well, at least she's honest!" laughed another woman in the booth.  He grabbed a more acceptably sized cup and filled it to the brim.
     "Merci," I muttered, and handed over my two euros.  Great, now the town will be abuzz that the American is an alcoholic.  I just wanted my vin chaud!

While Amelia and I walked over to the main road to watch the parade, we devised a point system for evening-- deduct one point for every student you see, and two points for every teacher.  However, within ten minutes we had abandoned the game because it was too hard to keep track.  I saw two teachers within a minute of each other, too many students to count, and my boss playing piccolo in the marching band, followed by one of my fellow choir members playing horn behind her.  They both stopped playing their instruments so they could wave at me.

The parade was a lot of fun, especially because it started snowing, and all of the Christmas lights that had been hanging in the streets unlit for the past two weeks were now festively shining.  There were a few floats and a lot of decorated tractors, but obviously the best part was when Saint Nicolas came past on his sleigh at the very end.  He threw out huge handfuls of candy as he passed, which actually hurt quite a bit as they collided with my face.  On the back of the sleigh crouched Père Fouettard, handing out thin tree branches to all of the boys, the logic being that boys are always naughty.  Now, whoever thought that giving naughty boys long, pointy sticks was a good idea should probably be butchered themselves.  I spent the rest of the night shielding my eyes from being poked out as boys whipped their branches around in delight.  Amusingly, anything stick-shaped is called a "baguette," so the parental chorus of the evening was, "Non, non!  Give me the baguette!"  Even more amusingly, baguette is also the translation for wand, so Harry Potter and Voldemort spend two and a half hours running around screaming about baguettes.  I wonder if French people also substitute the image of a baguette in place of wands while watching Harry Potter.   Or is that just me? 

The fireworks show at the end of the evening was nothing short of spectacular and I've really got to hand it to Bar-le-Duc.  The story of Saint Nicolas was told over speakers and all of the exciting parts were punctuated by fireworks, complete with an accompanying John Williams medley.  Amelia and I ooh-ed and ahh-ed and seemed to be the only ones reacting at all.  But really, it was epic!  It was like Christmas and New Year's rolled into one awesome holiday, complete with an evil butcher!

So tonight, I'll put out my shoes too and sing a song, just in case Saint Nicolas decides to pay me a visit.  But if I wake up in the morning and find my shoes empty, I'll know why because the song explains:  "If you don't come, my mother says it's because I'm all grown up."