The Village Santa Claus

We're not that "into" Santa Claus in our house, but our village has so many activities going on all the time that we thought we should probably participate from time to time. We thought this would be a good one to start with so we could get an idea of how many other children live in the village (I think about 20 showed up) and whether there were any others around his age (possibly 2 within about 6 months either way).

So we drove down to the municipal building yesterday. It's only about a 10 minute walk from our house, but it was cold out! We stood around like people who don't know anyone, since that is what we are, and waited. Once everyone had arrived, a few of the "comité des fêtes" (party committee, the people who organize all the village events) members read a story to the kids. Then they sang a Christmas song ("Petit Papa Noël", and by the way, this type of thing is sorely lacking in my French cultural education), and Santa Claus ("le Père Noël") showed up.

Benjamin was scared of Santa Claus - you can see him crying in the back of this picture:

But he was pretty excited about the big present he got!

So was Frederic, for that matter! Benjamin's gift was a "rescue set," complete with a helicopter that has lights & makes noise, a fire truck, a boat, an orca (to be rescued, I guess), a few little men and all sorts of little accessories that I'm sure will vanish rapidly to turn up later under the couches or in the VCR. We were pretty impressed with the quality of the presents they gave out (we learned at the end that our local taxes pay for it).

Benjamin will also have another present coming from Air France for Christmas, and next weekend we will go see the circus; also a gift from Air France.