Christmas Eve

The days leading up to Christmas were strangely tropical. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen preparing cookies, cakes, and other little treats to give to friends, but it just wasn't the same listening to Christmas carols alongside the whir of my air conditioner. This is beach weather: the trees are heavy with pineapples, litchis, and mangos, and the closest thing to snow is the white sand lining the coasts.

Next to the weather, another challenge of the holiday season is that there isn't really one here. In the U.S. we start celebrating Christmas the day after Thanksgiving: going to parties, Advent masses, seeing friends, listening to our favorite carols. I have come to attribute this over the top festiveness to the fact that this season at home is otherwise very dark and cold-- we need something to celebrate and look forward to; Christmastime lifts our collective spirit. The weather here, on the other hand, is sunny and beautiful all of the time, there is always a party or gathering of friends--no matter what time of year--so Christmas is just one more fun thing to add to the mix.

Nonetheless, I decorated my apartment the best I could and threw myself into the festivities. For Christmas Eve I was invited to my friends and neighbors, the Devictor's. They are a wonderful older couple from Marseille who have lived on Reunion Island for the past ten years. Every Christmas, I was to discover, their large following of friends and admirers travel here to bask in their generosity and fun. I was lucky to be amongst the guests and was even placed at the head of the table where my only requirement was to lead the crowd in late night choirs of American Christmas carol classics.

Devictor Family Christmas Tree

The guests from Marseille came loaded with fois gras and we ate more of the stuff than anyone should in a lifetime. Putting vegetarianism aside, I did not hold myself back. Robert Devictor, head of Christmas Culinary Arts made an excellent Rougail de Saucisses, the old Creole standby, and by the time dessert rolled around, we were all rolling around ourselves. Since this was a crowd from Southern France, we enjoyed the 13 desserts, a classic regional Christmas tradition that I once enjoyed while living in Aix-en-Provence as a student.
It was a Christmas that combined traditions from around the globe. One of the Devictor children, having spent a lot of time in England, brought the traditional British Christmas Crackers. This is a silly ritual where each guest is given a "cracker" which is a harmless paper firecracker filled with a crown, a joke, and a small gift. You intertwine hands with your neighbor, explode each other's cracker, and then jaunt around with your goofy crown for the rest of the evening. Highlight of my night.

Another tradition that is very typical to Reunion Island are "Les Lanterns Magique." They are large paper lantern-balloons. You light the base on fire and soon the heat lifts the lantern into the air--going quite high, I might add!!! Is that a UFO? The Christmas Eve sky was dotted with these beautiful balls of fire gliding into outer space. Lantern launching was followed by the traditional Devictor family cheer, brought to you by one too many bottles of champagne...

There's certainly no place like home for Christmas, but I felt that I was in the homiest place I could be on a night so far from my own.

My honorary Christmas relatives!