Le Reveillon: Customs For an Early French Christmas

For me, the highlight of the Christmas Season in Ste. Genevieve is Le Reveillon at the Felix Valle State Historic Site on Merchant and Second Streets. Traditionally, Le Reveillon is celebrated during the early hours of Christmas Day after Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. It begins Le Temps de Fete, the Time of Festivals. 

Le Reveillon is presently celebrated at the Felix Valle home in conjunction with the downtown Holiday Christmas Festival. This year it was on December 7, from 2:00-6:00. The free, open house celebration included music, food, customs, and decorations of an early 1800’s French Christmas. 

The participants were dressed in costumes. . .

Christmas carols were beautifully played by Rick Thum and his wife on hammered dulcimers. . .

In another corner of the living room, Deb Cambron demonstrated yarn spinning. . .

And the dining table was laid with traditional Colonial French Reveillon fare of meats, vegetables and les Treize Desserts de Noël, the thirteen desserts of Christmas.  There were slices of the Buche de Noel and cookies for the many visitors who passed through the house during the day.  

As the sun set late in the afternoon, candles were lit in the windows, casting a glow throughout the rooms, while the hammered dulcimers continued to play.  It was a joyous occasion. We visited at least three times in between Christmas concerts at the Catholic Church and a lecture on Colonial French and German Christmas customs by Bob Mueller. 

Bob Mueller and John discuss the day's activities.

Here's more history of the Reveillon celebration, provided by Donna Rausch, Natural Resource Manager at the Felix Valle. It is taken from a booklet written for the State Historic Site. (Thanks so much, Donna!)

 LE REVEILLON AT THE FELIX VALLE HOUSE STATE HISTORIC SITE

Customs and Recipes for an Early French Christmas

Early French households in Ste. Genevieve celebrated Christmas in a time-honored tradition, which focused on religion. Families gathered at midnight on Christmas Eve and walked together to church to celebrate la messe de minuit, midnight mass. Henry Marie Brackenridge, a young visitor to Ste. Genevieve in the late 1700s described his experience:

“At Christmas eve it was the custom to keep the church open all night, and at midnight to say mass. On this occasion, I found myself alone for nearly an hour before that time, seated on a high chair or stool, with a cross in my hand, in front of the altar, which was splendidly decorated, and lighted with the largest wax candles the village could afford.”

After mass, families gathered at the home of the family patriarch to begin the next part of the Christmas celebration, le reveillon. “Reveiller” in French means, “to awaken”, and le reveillon was the beginning of the celebration of the holiday in the home. The feast prepared for le reveillon was epic in proportion and contained typical everyday favorites, as well as once-a-year delicacies. Tables in Ste. Genevieve certainly offered a roast goose or turkey, bouillon (served traditionally as clear broth with the vegetables served separately), breads, wine, cheeses, blood sausage, and certain preserved fruits and vegetables. Steamboat traffic in the 1820s made delicacies from markets in New Orleans and the East coast available in Ste. Genevieve and without doubt added to the reveillon fare. 

No reveillon table in a French home could be complete without the crowning glory of thirteen desserts. This traditional number was said to represent Christ and the twelve Apostles. 

As Christmas arrives this year at the Felix Valle House in Ste. Genevieve, preparations are taking place as they did in the early 1800s. Candles are counted, coin silver spoons are polished, linens are starched, and the scent of pine fills the parlor. Enticing smells have been drifting from the kitchen, which has been busy for days. Le Reveillon is ready for another year, beginning the celebration of a wonderful, early French Christmas. 

 

Apples and communion wafers hung from a decorated chandelier are symbolic reminders of the religious holiday. The apples represent man’s downfall, while the wafers represent man’s redemption.

Christmas trees would have been unknown in early French households in Ste. Genevieve. 

French children placed their sabots, wooden shoes, on the hearth hoping that le petit Noel would fill them with nuts and sweets. Santa or Papa Noel comes on a donkey. 

(The carrots are for the donkey)

Santons de Provence from definingfrance.com

The creche would have been the focus of attention in the home. Small, painted clay figures, santons, surrounded the creche and represented the peasants of the French countryside witnessing the miracle. 

In the formal dining room, the tables were set with food for the celebration, the center of which were the thirteen desserts. . .

*Buche de Noel  The Yule log is part of many Christmas traditions around the world. This fanciful, rolled cake made to look like a log is surely the highlight of a reveillon table.

*Pain d’epice or Gingerbread Cookies The flavorful French gingerbread is well-suited for cut or molded cookies.

*Pralines are associated with the South, especially New Orleans.

*Gateau de Sirop  (Cane Syrup Cake) A Distinctly flavored cake with origins in Louisiana, where sugar cane is grown and cane syrup is still produced.

*Tarte aux Pommes (Apple Pie) This old-style tarte is thin and combines a cooked apple base with a sliced apple top. 

*French Sugar Cookies

*Pecan or Walnut Tarts

*French Pound Cake

*Pain d’epice as a Spice Cake

*Gateau Saint-Honore (Crown of Honor) named for the patron saint of bakers and pastry chefs. A ring of filled miniature cream puffs arranged around a pastry ring filled with a fruit and vanilla cream. (Filled with Bavarian cream at the Felix Valle.)

*Croquembouche literally translated means “crunch in the mouth.” The classic croquembouche recipe is  made of cream puffs, filled with vanilla pastry cream "glued" together in a pyramid or tree shape with caramel and decorated with spun sugar.

*Croquignoles -This old-style doughnut is rolled, cut, and twisted, then deep-fried to a golden brown. Like a cruller, they are great for dunking.

*Madeleines Marcel Proust made these delightful “little cakes” famous in French literature. They are still made today by bakers in Commercy, France.

(A plate of Nuts, usually Pecans or Walnuts, is often one of the desserts. Old pecan trees in Ste. Genevieve still offer a fantastic fall harvest.)

Also on the Reveillon table: 

*Bread and Wine

*Cheese

*Sausages

*Turkey
*Vegetables
*Tourtiere or Meat pies, which were traditional reveillon fare in many French-Canadian homes. Most of Ste. Genevieve’s inhabitants came from Quebec to the Mississippi River Valley in the mid-18^th century.  Ste. Genevieve’s tourtiere combines beef and pork for a hearty dish, hot or cold.

I will share a few of the recipes at a later date.

If you’ve never attended Le Reveillon, mark your calendars for next year’s celebration. The Holiday Christmas Festival is always the first full weekend of December in downtown Ste. Genevieve. It’s an amazing day, filled with a Christmas parade, musical concerts at the local churches, lighting of the Christmas tree, a live Nativity, and numerous other events. Of course, there is shopping and sight-seeing too. I promise it will be a wonderful beginning of your Christmas celebrations.

Joyous Noel. . .