Sundays Before Christmas

Santa takes requests

Carcassonne does not celebrate Christmas far in advance, but it celebrates well and up until the end of December. Perhaps it's old-fashioned in its holiday marketing, but it suits my temperament. Many stores in the Bastide open for local shoppers the three Sundays prior to Christmas. (Normally they are all closed on Sundays.) The Christmas market is offering up its wares, the skating rink does a brisk business and the plethora of strollers--the vehicles as well as the people--prove that the mayor's plan to make these attractions family-oriented is working.

This machine rotates like a cement mixer and holds hot wine

My camera and I went out to partake of some of the Christmas cheer.  It was almost too warm for vin chaud--hot wine, but only almost.  A cup of that and a hot soft pretzel, et voila---lunch!

Not your typical snowy English street scene complete with carolers

There is a little church, L'eglise les Carmes, on the pedestrian street that annually has a display of "creches" from all around the world. Most are small, not much larger than a shoe box (or perhaps a boot box) and are presented as glassed in dioramas.   This year's display is particularly interesting---many of the individual displays were from South American countries.  

The "manger" scene

Working windmill

At the entrance is a big display of a mythical village in southern France --complete with water mill and windmill with working vanes topped by the ubiquitous French coq.  I am especially taken with the scrubby Mediterranean vegetation and the miniature terra cotta tiled roofs.  Quite different from the "English village" displays I remember from my childhood.  

Wheel turns and the tiles on the roof charm me

A fenced in chicken coop?

I wandered through the streets, doing the tiniest bit of Christmas shopping, and out through the Portail des Jacobins, where there was another child-centered attraction.  There I found a vehicle suffering from an identity crisis--a train with masts and sails.  But maybe I am simply out of touch with current offerings in children's popular culture.

A boat?  A train?

Home was by way of the "farm" at Gambetta.  It never ceases to amaze me that a handful of chicken and geese, a pig and some goats and two sweet donkeys gather bigger crowds than the carousel  And I include myself in that--I could watch those lively little critters for hours.  The pig was busy re-arranging his straw in between butts from the brown goat.  I tried, in vain, to capture the iridescence of the tail feathers of the rooster.  At heart, all French think they are farmers, and I guess I do, too.

This one kept buting the pig

Love the expression on his face

This cog is magnificently iridescent

He's had his tail "done"--at the donkey spa, perhaps?

And here, nothing says Christmas more than red tulips in my home!  They were on sale--even better.

Christmas tulips in my grandmother's red vase

The afternoon sun puts tulip shadows on my chair

Some photos of the smaller "creches"

Can't remember the country of origin

Bolivia

I think this was Algeria

Quebec--this might have been my favorite

Peru

A parochial school in Rome used buttons and found glass

The Roman Star above the manger