Pressure from Père Noel

"Collecting toys in good condition for disadvantaged children"

Like everywhere in the western world, it's Christmas season here. You can hardly go anywhere without hearing parents tell their children,"Tu dois faire sage!" Veiled threats that Santa is watching work just as well for French kids as they do for American ones. These days we're telling our kids in both French and English that Santa is watching. But I'm not so sure our kids are really getting it. Maybe they're cracking under the pressure, I don't know. I'm not proud. See below.

At the Saint Martin Maternelle school all parents must walk their children all the way to the door of the child's classroom. Dropping off, picking up, in the morning, for lunch, in the afternoon, it's all the way to the classroom. It's pretty good, actually, because it creates a huge number of opportunities to interact with other parents. Perhaps I'll write about that another time. If it's true what they say about the greater the sacrifice then the greater the love, then perhaps French people love their kids more than the Americans at Copper Creek, since we must drop off our crazy ones at the curb?

Anyway, when Dave was dropping off Sophie and Sam yesterday, Sophie noticed the huge pile of toys stacked at the entrance to the school. "Dad why are there all those toys?" she asked. "Well," Dave responded. "Some children are poor and can only have Christmas if we give them some of our toys. Wouldn't it be nice if we could donate some of our toys to others who need them?" he asked.

Sophie thought for a minute, then shrugged as she began walking away. "Yeah," she said. "Maybe we could give them all the boring ones."