For those of you that read my blog regularly you'll know that I spent nearly 8 years of my childhood in France. We were very lucky on where we lived because there was a good British community in our village, and several families with children of similar ages to us that lived very nearby. We never really celebrated any of the French Traditions privately at home, but some of our friends did. My sister and I were invited round one afternoon, on Bastille Day to celebrate with our friends. Well it was all completely new to us, we were probably 7 and 9 years old ( me being the eldest), and we were wearing hats round the table like you would at Christmas. Well our friends Mum brings out this special cake and says that there is a coin inside and whoever gets the coin gets to make a wish! We were quite excited about this having never heard of it before! Unfortunately because it was such a big cake , and there was only four of us none of us found the coin!
This memory was triggered a few weeks ago (and I can't remember why now), and at the time I couldn't remember what we were celebrating. Then someone mentioned Bastille Day in passing - and thats when I put it all together and decided this was going to be by next Story for Sian's Storytelling Sunday this month! Make sure you pop over to her blog to read some other great stories!
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9 comments:
Funny how one part of a memory can come one day and the rest follows. the brain is an amazing thing! This is just the sort of little nugget of a story I love. Thank you!
it's great when memories come together!!
Next door had a French school in celebrating bastille day - don't know if they had cakes but seemed to have a great time even with pouring rain. :)
Fun memory to get written down - glad you were able to capture these elusive bits.
How wonderful that you spent so much time in France and have such memories. The cake would probably have been 'hacked' into at my house by the grandchildren seeking the coin. You were very restrained!
This reminds me of the "King Cake" tradition in New Orleans for Mardi Gras. There's a small baby Jesus baked into the cake and whoever finds it needs to host the next party.
Rinda
Well actually you've introdued me to two traditions - I didn't know about wearing hats around the table at Christmas. Thanks for sharing.
It's always fun celebrating special holidays with the 'locals'- wherever you are!
Alison xx
I love hearin about other people,s traditions shame the coin was never found tho!
What fun it would have been to live in France for those years. I wonder if the coin symbolised anything. Sounded like you had enough fun for it to make a lasting impression.
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