Palm trees, beaches, speedboats: these are the things the Riviera does well. Christmas, not so much.
That does not mean that the people over here ever give up trying, but that they do so, with mixed results.
Take, for example, Christmas Markets. In the Friench Riviera, any such event always has that unmistakable air of a poorly understood cultural import, like an Oktoberfest in Mexico.
This year, we have sampled some of the largest Christmas Markets in the French Riviera, so you know where to go if you happen to be here at some time during the holidays.
And what to avoid.
Let us start with the Christmas Market that works best, which is the one in Nice.
Here, they have managed to learn from the mistakes of past years where identical wooden huts were always arranged in a barrack-like grid – a Christmas garrison, more like – on Place Massena.
This year, Nice has stuck to the location but started to follow the Three Commandments of a successful Christmas Market.
Firstly: sell things that you cannot find anywhere else at any other time of the year.
Secondly, reserve spaces for people to huddle together and to congregate.
Christmas is a community project, a collective performance of childhood, togetherness and good will. The stage set has to reflect that. Otherwise, the performance will fail, and – more to the point, let’s be frank about this – so will the Christmas Market as a commercial venture.
So, don’t be afraid of throwing a little local flavour into the blender. That can only enrich the mix.
And thirdly: do not go easy on colours. And once you have found some things sufficiently gaudy or garish, hang lights on them. Christmas is not a celebration of good taste but of light and colour at a time when the world is at its darkest.
A few kilometres down the road in Monaco, in the Port Hercule yacht harbour, the public swimming pool – the piscine in French, known all over the world as the backdrop for Formula One’s most famous chicane – has been converted into a skating rink for the winter (or what passes as winter over here) …
… a more exuberant atmosphere prevails. Monaco’s Christmas Market is a carnivalesque mix of fast food stalls and fairground rides: a Christmas Market for people who do not like Christmas very much …
… and if it were not for the big Christmas tree right at the entrance, you would hardly be able to identify this as a Christmas Market at all. (The Christmas tree is fake, of course: made of plastic.)
Finally to Menton, where seasonal celebrations have been split between two locations: a conventional Christmas Market near the Bastion at the foot of the old town …
… and a Christmas Village for children in the Bioves Gardens just a couple of blocks away from the train station.
If you are travelling with small children, this is the place to go. Even if you may find the imagery in one or two of the exhibits a little hackneyed or overly twee, your little ones will be enchanted, particularly if you come here after dark when the place assumes a magic all of its own.
But does this village still have anything to do with Christmas? Does it, to be more precise, resemble the kind of Christmas that people from Northern Europe (or North America) would recognize from their childhoods?
Well, perhaps not. The near total absence of any religious references, for one, is striking – considering that France is, nominally at least, a Catholic country – but, even more importantly, the idea of huddling together against the adversity of a cold and hostile world appears inevitably alien if the world is as balmy and outwardly benevolent as it is here.
This is not the Riviera’s fault. As I am writing this, the sun is shining, the sky is blue, and the temperature has climbed to over 20 degrees today – centigrade, that is, not Fahrenheit.
Bear that in mind, please, before reprimanding the Christmas markets in the French Riviera too harshly for its own take on the Christmas experience.
It is in this spirit of brotherhood and universal goodwill that we ask you to accept our slightly early holiday greetings.
It’s Merry Christmas from us, and it’s Merry Christmas from him …
… or her. Or it.
We shall be back next week with a few seasonal reading suggestions. See you then!
