{"id":106,"date":"2006-11-20T12:44:17","date_gmt":"2006-11-20T16:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nyhabitat.com\/blog\/2006\/11\/20\/christmas-in-provence\/"},"modified":"2012-06-04T13:01:29","modified_gmt":"2012-06-04T17:01:29","slug":"christmas-in-provence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nyhabitat.com\/blog\/2006\/11\/20\/christmas-in-provence\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas in Provence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img id=\"image107\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nyhabitat.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/11\/christmas-provence-creche.jpg\" alt=\"Christmas in provence (creche)\" width=\"250\" align=\"left\" \/>In <strong>Provence<\/strong>, the <strong>Christmas season<\/strong> starts December 4 with the day of St Barbe, with the traditional sowing of wheat and lentils on 3 dishes covered with cotton pads. In every home, as the fresh green shoots grow, the \u2018small fields\u2019 symbolize prosperity.\u00a0 Provence enjoys a number of festivities and rituals throughout December but the best known ones are probably the Christmas cribs and Santons, Christmas markets and the Christmas 13 desserts.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Santons<\/strong> are Christmas crib figures representing villagers going to the crib. The word comes from the Proven\u00e7al \u201cSantoun\u201d and means Little Saint. The <strong>Marseilles<\/strong> Santons Fair is one of the most popular and lively traditions in the city. It takes place every year from the last Sunday in November through December 31. Originally, the figures were shaped from the dried soft interior of bread, then oil painted and varnished. Today\u2019s tradition has them made from the local red clay. They decorate every <a title=\"Apartments to rent in the Provence Region, France\" href=\"\/south-france-apartment\/furnished\/provence\">Provence apartment<\/a> and house\u2019s family crib by the Christmas tree.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Christmas 13 desserts<\/strong> are served upon returning from the Christmas Mass and remain on the table for 3 days.<br \/>\nThey are mainly dried fruit and nuts. Dried figs, almond, raisin and walnut are called the 4 beggars; dates symbolize Christ; white and black Nougat represent the white and the black penitents; the pompe \u00e0 huile (literally \u201coil pump\u201d) is a flat, round shaped bread enriched in olive oil; p\u00e2te de coing (quince jellied paste) or candied fruit; oreillettes (literally small ears), a thin waffle ear shaped and flavored with orange blossom water; fresh local fruit (mandarins, oranges, pears, grapes and winter melons).<\/p>\n<p>Christmas markets flourish in many Provence villages and cities. They make <a title=\"Tips to visit the Provence Region, France\" href=\"\/blog\/category\/south-france\/south-france-travel-guide\/provence\/\">Provence<\/a> worth visiting in December and for those who will be by the sea, then why not join in the \u201cBain de No\u00ebl\u201d and go for a swim in the fresh but invigorating seawaters. Nice has made it a tradition and the Bain de No\u00ebl on the Promenade des Anglais takes place every year a few days before Christmas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Provence, the Christmas season starts December 4 with the day of St Barbe, with the traditional sowing of wheat and lentils on 3 dishes&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nyhabitat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nyhabitat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nyhabitat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nyhabitat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nyhabitat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nyhabitat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2171,"href":"https:\/\/www.nyhabitat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions\/2171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nyhabitat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nyhabitat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nyhabitat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}