Poor Christmas tree, poor Christmas tree… January 27, 2010 @ 11:11 pm
In the lead-up to Christmas day, I was excited to have my very own, real, potted Christmas tree for the first time in my life. Strange, you might think, that someone can reach their thirties and never have had a real Christmas tree despite celebrating the holiday every year of their life, but I guess the heat in Australia always put my Mum off buying a real one, and the reliable plastic one was easy to put up and didn’t drop needles all over the place. The neighbours in Australia had a white Christmas tree, which now seems a bit peculiar, given the warmth of summer had usually kicked in, and while the white Christmas tree sat in their front window, we’d be having water fights on the hot pavement.
Not only had I not ever had a real Christmas tree until last Christmas, but for the previous five years, I had missed out on anything resembling a Christmas tree due to my last few abodes being too small or poorly laid out to fit one in. I was determined to change that last year, and on the first day of December, I was the proud owner of a Canadian pine tree. I decorated it with tinsel, baubles, chocolate bells and my own home-made gingerbread. I marvelled at it every morning and again every afternoon when I turned the lights on. I watered the pot and lovingly laid Christmas presents under this wonderful thing that twinkled and grew right there in my loungeroom. It was there for me when I needed a tree. It still looked lovely on Christmas Day, although some of the gingerbread and chocolates had gone missing by then.
Twelve days later, I knew I should have taken the Christmas tree outside, but it was so pretty, I left it inside. Besides, I needed to find someone who had room to plant it. I didn’t want to take it to the forest and plant it just in case it introduced any non-native tree problems. And I specifically wanted a potted Christmas tree that could be replanted because I always feel so sad when I see these once lovely, proudly decorated trees stripped of all those decorations and tossed on a cold balcony to die and eventually be removed when someone can be bothered. I loved my tree so much that I took my time to find a new home for it, and after a few attempts, a family in La Clusaz offered to take it and plant it in their yard. All I had to do now was undress the decorations from the tree and get it to their yard.
I undressed the tree tonight. In the process, most of the lower branches dropped the few remaining needles that hadn’t already dropped off, while the needles from the upper branches trickled through the tree with every bauble removal. I think the tree is dead. A visiting friend helped me get it outside, and it’s now dumped in the snow, surrounded by its own needles. Accuse me of having an overactive imagination, but seeing that tree out there tonight was like seeing a nearly-dead body, with the needles being the blood leaking from the body. And I feel guilty. I’ve killed the tree that brought me so much happiness in December! Had I found it a home earlier and not been so selfish, the tree might still be alive, nay, thriving today! Instead, I now have a dead tree in my front yard — the one thing that I wanted to avoid doing. Worse still, I know I’ll be cursing it dropping more needles when it goes to the tip in the back of a car. I know a Christmas tree is probably one of the most objectified things in the world, but I wanted to make sure mine would revert back to just a tree once Christmas passed. So, Christmas tree, this is your blog entry, to say thank you for the lovely December, and I’m so sorry for killing you.
Should I just get a plastic tree next year?

In France, the 6th of January, Epiphany, is celebrated with a sweet treat. La galette des Rois (wafer of the kings) is a puff pastry pie-like thing with a layer of almond paste, known as frangipane, sandwiched between the pastry. It’s a special cake because it contains a porcelain figurine (now usually something plastic), which entitles the finder to be king of the household for the day.
Meanwhile, in La Clusaz, word gets around in the pubs if the police are stopping cars leaving town. Those who have lost their license can still buy a little two-stroke car that sounds like a lawn mover and goes at about the same speed. These cars, an old but popular model here pictured, need no license to drive! When you see these cars on the road, you know you want to be as far away from the driver as possible. The drivers could be drunk and may have bought the car because they lost their license for that reason. On top of that, they’re likely to cause accidents when they’re pushing their car to the limit of 45km/h in a 90 zone. They certainly cause traffic build-ups. But I digress. Last winter, a drunk driver in La Clusaz stopped to pick up three hitchhikers. Hitching is common in all age groups here because the buses seem to stop as soon as the sun goes down. And so, these three hitchhikers were school kids. The guy driving didn’t notice a huge bend in the road and drove straight into a tree down an embankment at high speed. He survived. The three kids did not. The loss of three local kids spun the locals into action. There was talk of some sort of car pooling last summer, but I don’t know if that ever took off. I did notice, however, that St Jean De Sixt declared ‘Operation Red Nose’ on New Year’s Eve, offering a lift home to anyone who called the central number. Volunteers drove (hopefully not in the lawnmower cars), and hopefully made the roads a bit safer for everyone.
One of the benefits of learning French whilst living in France is that the more obscure words I’d be unlikely to learn in a French language class are more available to me. For example, a housewarming party in French is not chauffage de maison. The literal translation does not work. It’s pendaison de crémaillère, which translates to ‘pot hook hanging.’ I’d argue that it’s a stupid name, but is ‘housewarming party’ any better? In fact, after finding out more about the pot hook hanging, I think it’s a better name. Let me explain.
Here is a photo of some horses standing outside a local community hall in Thônes. Let me explain. Last year, I wrote about the hay bail competition and the cows and tractors for sale at the local fair called la 



On Friday night, La Clusaz hosted the inter-village games known as Les Gamineries des Aravis which involves participants from the local villages (La Clusaz, Le Grand Bornand, St. Jean de Sixt, Thônes and Manigod) as well as a team of tourists. As you can see from this photo, the event features It’s a Knockout-style games, with events such as this one with two team members trying to knock a team member off the other surfboard. Other events included:
That’s not a spelling mistake. The other night, I went to a meuhriage. Pictured are the bride and groom. Notice anything odd? Yes, that’s a man dressed up as a bride, with black fishnet stockings on, marrying a man in pink glasses. They’re both actually straight.


