By Didier Allouch, host of Rendez-vous d'Amérique
My dear francophiles, francovorous and francophageous friends, I know, this Noël won’t be the same. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be Christmas…
I know that a lot of you are used to getting on a plane for the holidays and spending a couple of weeks in Paris, Montréal, Genève, Brussels or wherever you’re from, wherever your family lives. And I know that, for most of you, that won’t be the case this year. Most of you will stay here, celebrating Christmas, Hanukah or whatever your faith is, celebrating the holidays with your close family or, in some cases, by yourself. It’s really hard, I know, but it is what it is. We have to be strong. We don’t have a choice. We need to stay safe.
For some of you, this may be your first Christmas in the US. I used to stay here for the holidays. Not by choice, for work… Usually the Golden Globe ceremony is just a week after New Year’s Day. But I always sent my kids to to France with their Mom. We do a pre-Christmas before they go… So, I know what Christmas in sunny California means.
It’s weird… For a Parisian kid, who grew up with freezing Christmases, sometimes even white ones, eating the “Dinde aux marrons” under the sun takes some getting used to.
But I did get used to it. And the chestnut turkey in the sun works perfectly well… At least, this year, I’ll have my kids with me. It’s the silver lining, as they say here…
I hope that next year we’ll be able to leave or stay as we wish. I hope that next year you’ll be wherever you want to be. I hope that next year, we’ll be back to normal. Or at least to a new normal…
Things will be different on the other side of this crisis, on the other side of the vaccine. We’ll probably have to do with fear and doubt. We’ll have to adapt to a different world. But change can be good, doubt can be good.
In the episode of Rendez-vous d’Amérique you’ll see this week; we met the actor Omar Sy. This guy is full of energy. His smile is so communicative. But at the end of our interview, he says that the quest for self-meaning is the most important thing in order to find self-fulfillment. Not the result, but the quest. He doesn’t have the answer, he knows he’ll never get it. But he also knows that only the questions are important. They make us go forward. They make us better human beings.
No, we won’t celebrate Noël in our hometown this year. But that’s OK.
What we’re living in now can make us better because it is questioning everything and, listening to Omar, only questions can make us better.
Joyeux Noël, everyone. Wherever you are!