Thursday, January 7, 2010

La Fête des Rois 2010

Yesterday was La Fête des Rois or Epiphany. My Kugelhopf has a good post up about Three Kings day in France and the German speaking part of Switzerland. I do not know if the "celebration" in Morges is traditional in the French speaking part, or maybe it's just a Morges/Vaud thing? I put celebration in quotes because I'm not sure that taking your sad, old Christmas tree to the train station to get sent through a wood chipper really qualifies as a celebration, even if there is a stand giving out tea, mulled wine, and couronne. Though this far past Christmas it does feel great to finally get rid of the tree that's been tied up on our balcony since the 26th.




In addition to the wood chipper set up at the train station there was also the more traditional and festive Gallette de Rois or Couronne (here they sell both) that could be bought at the supermarkets or boulangeries.

One boulangerie had les fèves for sale, so I picked up a bunch for hopefully baking into cakes on Three Kings Day when we're not living in Switzerland any longer.

We ended up with two Gallette de Rois. The first I bought at Migros (supermarket), thinking I'd be too lazy to go out to a boulangerie the next day. But once I got it home, I noticed that the box said it was not for children because it contained kirsch. The above gallette we bought at Fornerod tasted so much better though, I'm glad I was forced to go get a second one!

My mom found--or maybe I spotted it and gave it to her--the fève in the Migros gallette (which by the way did not taste booze-y at all), and I found the fève in the Fornerod gallette.


We also happened to have two kids who really wanted to be king, so having two crowns worked out nicely (Grammie and I didn't mind relinquishing our power). The very first thing Niamh did this morning when she got out of bed was to put her crown on again.

We took a bit of a blog break due to being sick, and having visitors, and all the usual holiday craziness. I'll hopefully be able to catch up the blog in the next couple of days with photos from the past couple of weeks.

2 comments:

  1. Oh, leave it to the Swiss to have the timely solution for Christmas trees! I think it's a celebration, the only way to use those trees, really, and save our landfills. What happens to the wood chips? Do you walk away with a bag full of them? I'm so glad you have your mom visiting. Happy New Year!

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  2. You know, I'm not sure what happens to the wood chips. They weren't giving out bags of them. But yes, it is a great way to get rid of the trees! There are no landfills here, so recycling is a pretty big deal!

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