Yesterday was the « Fête des Mères » here in France. You see signs for the holiday in shop windows (especially jewelers and chocolatiers), but it’s not a giant holiday. Like many European countries, the celebration here was inspired by US servicemen sending cards back home to their moms during WWI. The French holiday was actually created here in Lyon. There’s a bit of a twist, however: the original holiday was tied to anti-depopulation efforts and celebrated mothers of large families (tell me that your city has a Catholic history without telling me that your city has a Catholic history). With just the one daughter, I wouldn’t have qualified. The one good thing that the Vichy government did was to open the holiday up to mothers of all family sizes.
Lilian and Kristian let me sleep in (the best present ever). They went to our Sunday marché and bought me a beautiful bouquet from our favorite flower guy. Apparently they caused a little bit of drama. He’d wandered off for a bit, so one of his neighboring vendors tried to get ahold of him. When he didn’t answer, the guy put a bouquet together for Lilian. Unfortunately, he made the mistake of going into flower guy’s truck to get scissors to cut the stems. It was all rapid fire French when flower guy came back, but Kristian tells me that he did make out “I’ll kill you if you touch my stuff again.”
On a less murderous note, Lilian told me that she got a five euro discount for being a regular.
(And then she apologized for talking about how much a gift cost).
Kristian and Lilian made me a delicious breakfast of shakshouka, toast, melon, and fresh strawberries from the marché.
After some time for digestion, Lilian went to flexibility class with me (the second best Mother’s Day gift, after sleeping in).
We spent the rest of the day at a picnic for families in the anglophone section at Lilian’s school. The heat wave was starting to abate, so it was actually pleasant to hang out in a park and talk about life in France. Although we are now officially “I stood around talking for a few hours and now my feet are on fire” years old.
We finished off the day with a movie (The Hunger Games), Indian takeout, and a frozen yogurt that Lilian made for everyone.
They say that, when you feel appreciated on a regular basis, holidays like Mother’s Day feel less fraught. I guess it’s a good sign that a lowkey day was just what I needed! Lilian was just telling me the other day that she loves that she can be her whole self with me. I’ll take that over a present any day of the week.
