Christmas mass really is very important
Of course there is the French revolution and Voltaire and all that stuff but Christmas mass really is very important. It’s that temporary switch off from modern life illumination and diving into the mystery that is Christmas. Christmas mass usually is on the twenty-fourth around midnight which is why I have to admit that, after coming of age, I probably never attended one thoroughly sober. Likewise my fellow nightly Christmas church goers I assume, and therefore the ambience generally is rather peaceful. The event is preceded by hours of delightfully sinful conduct, which makes me think that maybe that’s the exact reason why it is held so late in the day and definitely not before dinner, te absolvo a peccatis tuis etc.
Also it is important because baby Jesus arrives during Christmas mass, see also door number 4.
A wonderful tradition I find, spending midnight in a candlelit church, mildly tipsy and happily satiated, wafts of myrrh scenting the air, singing old songs and trying not to giggle when the occasional snore from those my fellow brethren and sisters who succumbed to a most placid slumber interrupts the solemn rites.
This is Les Poissonchat’s Wondrous Advent Calendar! Advent calendars are a huge tradition where I come from: you make little gifts for your loved ones every day until Christmas Day, fourandtwenty little surprises. The advent calendars come in beautifully old fashioned prints on cardboard, with extra glitter, and each day there’s a paper door waiting for you to pry open. Others are more elaborate, pretty baskets filled with twenty four numbered parcels, decorated with red velvet ribbons. The one I’m making for you this season is altogether a different one, and, quite obviously, it’s about beloved France, Christmas in France, and after all, what it takes to celebrate a proper French Christmas.
Les Poissonchats 