Fête de 100 Jours - Money does grow on trees!!!

Here in France as part of a numeracy drive the children in my daughter's class were asked to bring in their collections of one hundred things.

We took a cheap canvas, bought in Lidl, and painted it in green, blue, and turquoise acrylic paint, then when it was dry we painted on a tree trunk and branches.

Isabelle counted out one hundred coins, fifty two centimes and fifty one centimes.   Then she split them into piles of twenty-five and put two of the piles into two bowls filled with Vanish OxyAction to shine them up.   It didn't work as well as we would have liked, cheap cola would probably have had been a better choice, but we didn't have any so we made do!

When the coins were dried Isabelle stuck them to the tree, and then she painted on some flowers to bring it to life a bit.   Here is the final picture, and she is quite rightly proud of it!

 

The Ghost of Christmases Past.....(Food and Drink)

Back in my childhood, Christmas food was special because it was only available at that time of year.

The food we have now we can get all year round, want a turkey for Sunday lunch?   Sure!  Go to the supermarket and buy one any day of the year.   Want the trimmings?   Go ahead!   Also available 24/7/365!   

When I was little there were foodstuffs that were ONLY available at Christmas time; juicy, sweet clementines, bitter sweet cranberry sauce, Quality Street chocolates, Roses chocolates, turkish delight covered in icing sugar, that created sweet clouds when you pressed the lid down, dates, syrupy and sticky, with a strange fork in the middle, tins of Cheesy Balls, cheese paste surrounded by wafer and shaped into a football, chocolate coins in net bags, tubes of Jelly Tots, Fruit Pastilles or Smarties, the list goes on....   Nowadays most of this stuff is there. All. The. Time.    

 


For me, being in France, I get to revisit my childhood to a certain extent, because my memories of Christmas fare are not available here, so I can source them in the UK and either persuade my son or another willing victim to bring them over.    The lack of ready availability has re-elevated seasonal fare to its rightful position on top of the list of preparations and all things Noël.