Merry fake Christmas!

I nearly forgot to write today, in all the excitement of cleaning la maison top to bottom (well, mostly just the bottom) and cooking mock Christmas dinner. We had a party last night to celebrate Cata's birthday early and so there was more cleaning than usual to be done, although our party did not nearly live up to what we've heard of last year's hijinks. Apparently les filles de la maison blanche of last year threw some swinging shindigs and the boys in the nearby bars remember them with great fondness and sometimes come to knock on our window (and they're always very disappointed when we're either asleep or playing Uno). But it went well: a few of Cata's students came and we got one of them to speak Ch'ti to us (well, nearly). Ch'ti or Chtimi is the local not-exactly-dialect, not-exactly-language: it's kind of like Flemish, except it's something mixed with French and Spanish instead of French and German, from the era in which the Spanish tried to conquer Cambrai (because, hey, it used to be important). My girls always refused to speak Ch'ti to me - they say it's vulgar or ugly - but I have one class to which only one student shows up, and last week we talked about Ch'ti, so I now know a few words. It's so fascinating to see the bits of Spanish, like "el" instead of "le", and the way to say "I love you", which I have no hope of spelling, sounds like "te quiero" (ej te kere, possibly).

Anyway! Christmas. Because Michelle is leaving for Egypt on Wednesday and most of the others are skivving off home eventually, we had our Christmas dinner early. We were busy girls and cooked all afternoon, and then sat around for a couple of hours letting everything get cold, because apparently with three of us, things go faster than we thought. We cooked two thirds of a Thanksgiving in less than four hours; Christmas dinner took about the same. We've learned how to cook whole chickens! And I made stuffing, and we had sprouts and mashed potatoes and stewed cranberries and a bunch of vegetables, and then for dessert there were very English things: trifle and mince pies and apple crumble and bread pudding and we did Christmas crackers and enforced the wearing of the stupid paper crowns. It was all very nice and we are all very full. Matthias is prone on the couch, and Michelle is doing dishes, and Cata is cleaning up, and I am writing this email, and Max and Ellen and Cary and Steffen and Anna have all gone home to presumably be prone in their own houses, given that they are generally either sick or have to get up early or both. We did an eight person secret Santa, which had the entertaining result of everyone pulling pairs. Cary and Matthias put their heads together and decided it was a one in forty eight chance of that happening.

Tomorrow I have off, just like every Monday, and Tuesday it will be back to the commute. I usually stay over at the other place the night before I catch the early bus (which I'll have to do now Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays) because it's nicer to have a three minute walk through the morning rain than a ten minute walk. I wait with the students: they all greet each other, or anyway the boys all shake hands, and none of them greet me (but then, they're not my students usually). The bus is supposed to leave at 6.55 but generally decides to pull up to the quai around seven. It is dark again when I get on the bus and pay my euro fifty, sometimes mostly in pennies and two cent pieces. The gains from turning back from Daylight Savings didn't last. In the morning dark, the fields don't look green: they roll off into shadows of towns and steeples and trees, and here and there you can see lights. The train full of commuters slides through the dark, just enough light from the windows to ease the passage. We pass a church which in daylight is old and dignified and in the dark has a clockface studded with tiny orange lights, very modern. The schoolchildren clamber on, flashing their student cards which let them ride the bus for free. They kiss their friends, or shake hands, and crowd into the seats, which are nicer than American school bus seats. Here the buses double for municipal and school transport, but they're still cushier than Chicago's public transport, or DC's or New York's.

In the mornings it is quiet. Here in some places the roads are dug down into the roll of the countryside and so we drive between earth banks so high they're almost a tunnel. Everyone just stares ahead. The radio plays bad pop music. The evening bus is noisier. Sometimes it's still light and then I can see the green fields (still green! And there are still roses in front of the school, and flowers in front of the town hall). Along the route there are a few lonely graves marked specially with large crosses, and cemetaries full of smaller stones, and there is a crumbling brick thing that I love. I'm not sure what it is: it's kind of like the base of a tower, just all alone on top of a little hill, half broken, half covered with ivy, and unbeliveably picturesque. Across the way there is another little tower, surrounded by trees and plants and other things. I always mean to take a photo, and I always forget. Someday.

I'm excited: this week I get a new group of students, and of course I'll be doing lots and lots of Christmas activities. I actually started my Christmas things last week. I had some of my terminale kids translate the lyrics to "The Christmas Song". We started by listening to the Michael Bublé version, but that made some of them want to dance. One boy actually got up and danced with me for a moment, and then I decided that was enough of that, and we switched to James Taylor and got some work done before we listened to a song some of the students had written for the Telethon fundraiser. The kids were surprisingly good: not all of them talk all the time, so I don't always know if they actually know things, but they did quite well, and the Portugese kid who flirts with me marshalled them on. It's interesting being not much older than my students. They're maybe a little sassier than they are with their regular profs (not that I can't outsass them and keep them in line) but they're also more willing to talk to me sometimes. We get along well.

Mom will be here this weekend, which means I have a good excuse to go to Paris. I just hope the trains aren't still on strike! There have been an irritating amount of strikes lately. I disapprove. But at least we have hot water again and hey, lots of Advent and Christmas chocolate. Excellent.