{"id":32561,"date":"2020-12-22T05:30:50","date_gmt":"2020-12-22T04:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=32561"},"modified":"2020-12-21T04:28:52","modified_gmt":"2020-12-21T03:28:52","slug":"french-christmas-to-fill-your-shoes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/french-christmas-to-fill-your-shoes\/","title":{"rendered":"French Christmas – To fill your shoes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite the current pandemic, people around the world are preparing to celebrate No\u00ebl<\/strong>. For many enfants<\/strong>1<\/a><\/sup>children<\/em><\/span> in France, that preparation includes leaving une chaussure ou une paire de souliers au peid du sapin<\/strong>2<\/a><\/sup>a shoe or pair of shoes beneath (<\/em>lit. at the foot of) the Christmas tree<\/em><\/span> on Christmas eve.<\/p>\n

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Chaussures, bottes, ou chaussettes \u2026 <\/strong><\/p>\n

The custom of leaving shoes, boots, or stockings\/socks <\/em>beneath the Christmas tree (or by the fire) goes back to a legend of Saint Nicolas giving des pi\u00e8ces de monnaie<\/b>3<\/a><\/sup>coins<\/em><\/span> (or in some stories trois bourses d\u2019or<\/b>4<\/a><\/sup>three pouches filled with gold<\/em><\/span>) to save three pour girls from being sold off by their father (to prevent them from dying of hunger!).<\/p>\n

Aujourd\u2019hui<\/b>5<\/a><\/sup>Today<\/em><\/span> instead of money (or gold!), Le P\u00e8re No\u00ebl<\/b>6<\/a><\/sup>Santa Claus, Saint Nicolas<\/em> (lit. Father Christmas<\/em>)<\/span> will traditionally leave a piece of fruit (une pomme, une orange, quelques clementines<\/b>7<\/a><\/sup>an apple, an orange, some clementines<\/em><\/span>) or candy<\/em> (des bonbons<\/b>) for children.<\/p>\n

To fill your chaussettes de No\u00ebl<\/strong> this year, I\u2019ve assembled a few treats of my own.<\/p>\n

First a peek at some seasonally-relevant vocabulary!<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was this old when I realized that a manger wasn’t a stable! The English word manger<\/em> comes from the same roots as the French word mangeoire<\/strong> … which is not the stable in which Mary and Joseph took refuge in the story of the birth of Christ, but the feeding trough<\/em> that the parents laid their new born son in as the closest thing to a crib they could find in\u00a0l’\u00e9table<\/strong>8<\/a><\/sup>the stable<\/em><\/a><\/span>.
\nThere are a number of ways in French to say give a gift<\/em>. I find a number of them much more poetic than the basic donner un cadeau<\/strong>. On peut faire un cadeau ou offrir un cadeau<\/strong>\u00a0… make a gift or offer a gift. <\/em>I love the implied idea in making a gift to someone or offering it … especially since in French the idea of offering comes with the implication that you hope the person will accept it … like the difference between donner<\/em> and partager.<\/em><\/a>
\nAnd now on with les cadeaux!<\/strong><\/div><\/p>\n

Vaux in lights<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of my favorite chateaux in France is Vaux-le-Vicomte<\/a>. Designed by the same artisans who would go on to create Versailles, it is a perfect jewel box of a chateau \u2026 as you can see in this video highlighting the son et lumi\u00e8re<\/strong><\/a> being put on in, around, and on<\/em> the chateau this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n