Noel, Noel...

 

Last weekend, after our excursion by bus, we wandered down to the water (Place Albert 1er) and found that the leaders of the groups of kids were assembling for the evening ‘torchlight’ parade.   Each group had its our style of funny hat and big balloons sporting the name of the group – schools, I think.   It looked more like a party for the adults.    

We walked around and took pictures, sat down and had a beer and waited for the little kids to assemble, which they very slowly did, cars stopping and dropping off moms and babies and strollers.  Finally, when it was almost dark and the Christmas lights came on, the big announcement came and they sort of lined up.   

Lining up neatly is not a  French skill, but they managed to get themselves in some sort of order.  Then all the lights on the street were turned out, and  the kids at the head of the line started moving, with their little electric lanterns lit, following the petit train, which usually drives the tourists around town, but had been borrowed  to  haul the band playing Christmas music ahead of them.   

 NOT the children’s band we’d heard earlier laboriously making its way up and down the scales, but one that could do fanfares, and, upon arrival at Place DeGaulle, launch into a suitably strong rendition of Petit Papa Noel.   There we waited through a long  speech from the emcee, urging the people upstairs in the surrounding buildings to turn out the lights in their apartments so as not to interfere with the sound and light show, exhorting people to clap for the kids, the municipal employees, the organizers and then to move out of the way and let the kids through.  

Finally the program was announced, the trees turned purple and aqua and Père Noel appeared and promised a journey to fairyland – and then the trees turned color again and something electrical went haywire and everything stopped.

At that point we admitted our sore feet and headed home (the sound and light show runs every night from now till Christmas, so we may yet see it.).   There’s a small Christmas fair in our square, so we stopped to watch the kids with their cotton candy (in French it’s barbe à papa – papa’s beard).

The following day, under absolutely brilliant sunshine, we rode the bus to Nice, and arrived on the Promenade des Anglais in the middle of a Christmas tree market.  All sizes of Christmas trees – well, all French sizes, which means the smallest is a foot tall and the largest is about 6 feet tall.  

 For people with high ceilings, the French don’t seem to hanker for tall trees.   Trees are expensive – 35 Euros for a tree that came up to my waist.  Still, there were plenty of buyers and a variety of ways to get them home.

We wandered around there for a while before heading into Vieux Nice to find lunch.  In the late afternoon, the Med was still a gorgeous blue and the surf was actually crashing.  And even bigger crowds of people were out walking the Promenade.

Alas, since then our beautiful blue skies have turned gray, but we’re hoping they’ll return soon.   Maybe for Christmas day.