{"id":882,"date":"2022-11-30T09:15:25","date_gmt":"2022-11-30T09:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/international-programmes\/?p=882"},"modified":"2024-10-29T10:34:59","modified_gmt":"2024-10-29T10:34:59","slug":"christmas-in-aix-en-provence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/global-learning\/2022\/11\/30\/christmas-in-aix-en-provence\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas in Aix en Provence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\">I am an international student from France, and Christmas is probably the most amazing time of the year for me! In my city, Aix en Provence, there is a Christmas market every year, and all the streets and fountains are decorated. It\u2019s really pretty!<\/p>\n<p>My family and I remain very attached to the Christmas traditions, and we always decorate the Christmas tree all together. Even if the youngest in my family is my 18 years old sister, we still put a glass of milk and biscuits for Santa Claus next to our Christmas tree, as well as carrots for the reindeer.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_883\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-883\" style=\"width: 322px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-883\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/global-learning\/files\/2022\/11\/Picture1.jpg\" alt=\"Christmas markets in Aix en Provence\" width=\"322\" height=\"215\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-883\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Christmas markets in Aix en Provence<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_885\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-885\" style=\"width: 318px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-885\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/global-learning\/files\/2022\/11\/Picture3-1.jpg\" alt=\"Christmas in Aix en Provence\" width=\"318\" height=\"212\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-885\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Christmas lights in Aix en Provence<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_886\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-886\" style=\"width: 324px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-886\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/global-learning\/files\/2022\/11\/Picture4.jpg\" alt=\"A street lit up with Christmas lights\" width=\"324\" height=\"207\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-886\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Christmas lights in Aix en Provence<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Alongside the Christmas tree, we also do a \u201ccreche\u201d with santons, which are small hand-painted terracotta nativity scene figurines, produced in the Provence region of south-eastern France, where I am from. In a traditional Proven\u00e7al cr\u00e8che, there are 55 individual figures representing various characters from Proven\u00e7al village life such as the scissors grinder, the fishwife, the blind man, and the chestnut seller.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_887\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-887\" style=\"width: 430px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-887\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/global-learning\/files\/2022\/11\/Picture5.jpg\" alt=\"A nativity scene made of terracotta figures\" width=\"430\" height=\"241\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-887\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>A traditional Provencal creche<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_888\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-888\" style=\"width: 444px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-888\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/global-learning\/files\/2022\/11\/Picture6.jpg\" alt=\"A traditional Provencal creche\" width=\"444\" height=\"319\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-888\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Terracotta figurines<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The 24th of December, we eat \u201cles 13 desserts\u201d. It is an old Christmas tradition in Provence. Thirteen desserts are enjoyed after Christmas Eve dinner, traditionally representing Jesus and his twelve Apostles. Each guest must eat all thirteen in order to guarantee good luck for the year to come.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_889\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-889\" style=\"width: 435px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-889\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/global-learning\/files\/2022\/11\/Picture7.jpg\" alt=\"Les 13 desserts on Christmas Eve\" width=\"435\" height=\"290\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-889\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Les 13 desserts<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>We open our gifts the morning of the 25th of December, and then we celebrate Christmas with all of my family. I am really looking forward to celebrating Christmas this year!!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-831\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/global-learning\/files\/2022\/11\/GOLD-Programme_horz_RGB-01-smaller.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"512\" height=\"512\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am an international student from France, and Christmas is probably the most amazing time of the year for me! In my city, Aix en &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/global-learning\/2022\/11\/30\/christmas-in-aix-en-provence\/\">Read&nbsp;more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79191,"featured_media":884,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[215959,202858],"tags":[215960],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/global-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/global-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/global-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/global-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79191"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/global-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=882"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/global-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1780,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/global-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882\/revisions\/1780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/global-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/global-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/global-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/global-learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}