Like many parts of France, Provence has traditions that go back centuries. Many of them surround Christmas, the most important holiday of the year. Let’s look at a few.
Sainte-Barbe’s Wheat
The Provençal Christmas season begins on December 4, Saint Barbara’s day. This is when families fill three small dishes—three representing the Trinity—with wet cotton balls sprinkled with wheat seeds. These are kept moist in the hopes that the seeds will sprout.
Twenty days later, on December 24, if the wheat has grown straight and green, it is said there will be a good harvest the following year. But if the wheat is sickly or bent over, watch out!
Nativity Scenes
Towns all over France have nativity scenes, called crèches, but in Provence they are uniquely different. Here you won’t find Jesus, Mary, and Joseph surrounded by wise men. Instead, the crèche provençal is filled with santons, those adorable little figurines that depict characters from village life like the baker and the fishwife.
This is because the display of crèches, like much of religious life, was banned during the French Revolution. So, a clever artist from Marseille invented santons and turned the crèche into a “village scene” using his figurines instead of the usual Biblical characters. Happily, the anti-religious zealots of the Revolution somehow missed the fact that santon means “little saint.”
Parades
Parades take place all over Provence during the Christmas season, with songs played on fifes and tambourines and townspeople in traditional dress. Especially popular is the lady’s Arlésienne outfit, a long, flowing dress with scarves over the shoulders, and hair pinned up.
Perhaps the most entertaining parade is the bravade calendale of Aix-en-Provence. Here you’ll see paraders prancing about dressed as dancing horses, and young men with huge flags, spinning and hurling them in the air like jugglers.
Aix must really like parades because on January 6 (Epiphany) they hold a Three Kings parade where wise men and live camels stroll down the main thoroughfare—it’s very popular with kids!
Food
A traditional Christmas dinner in Provence concludes with treize desserts (thirteen desserts.) Like many Christmas traditions, it is full of religious symbolism—thirteen, for example, represents the number of people at the Last Supper.
As for what desserts to serve, each family decides for itself but fruits and nuts, candies, and some sort of sweetened bread are usually included, plus calisson cookies from Aix. And many families serve two kinds of nougat, one white and one black, to symbolize good and evil.
Read more about the 13 desserts of Provence
The Pastrage
Sheep have been a part of Provençal life for millennia, and a lamb is often used to symbolize the baby Jesus. During the pastrage, a cortege of shepherds arrives at church with a baby lamb, often as part of a midnight mass. The lamb is then placed into a nativity scene, with townspeople playing the various roles.
Keith Van Sickle splits his time between Provence and California. He is the author of An Insider’s Guide to Provence, One Sip at a Time, and Are We French Yet? Read more at Life in Provence
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