Trolling the ancient Yuletide carols

So, while dancing at a soirée and singing "All I want for Christmas is you", a brilliant(ly absurd) idea occurred to me. Caroling. In the residences. If I am doomed to miss the traditional Lexington caroling with the Page family, the least I can do to ease my sorrow is bully some friends into humiliating themselves with me by performing English carols for various unsuspecting French students. Luckily for me, Jacquie, my fellow lectrice, was more than equal to this challenge, as was Zara, who also brought her poor visiting sister. We bribed, guilt-tripped and begged some others into coming along for various amounts of time, and went from module to module. I had made up some lyric sheets with a bunch of typical carols, and printed out copies for everyone we could entice, plus some extras. Call me an optimist.

We started with building A, bottom to top, mostly where we knew people, but also anywhere that was next door to a bell we were already ringing, and suddenly it seemed we were caroling almost all the modules, all the way to building E. We sang a song at each one, followed by the "we wish you a merry christmas and a happy new year" refrain. To one guy who said he had just turned 21, we sang happy birthday.

Reviews were decidedly mixed. Many clapped, many laughed, a couple peeked out and decided it must not be for them and closed the door again. One told us that her roommates were sleeping (it was 9:15), and we should be quiet. One guy offered to teach us the lyrics in French. Many thanked us and congratulated us on our beautiful singing (this may or may not have been slightly undeserved. Effort points?) But mostly, we got the confused face. Did we want money? (no) Did we want wine? (no) Did we want German truffles? (yes, definitely.) The looks on their faces asked why we would ever do such a thing, such a terrifically humiliating thing. The roommate of one of our friends told her this was one tradition she was very glad the French didn't have. We explained the tradition of caroling numerous times, with varying amounts of success.

In the beginning, we were six or seven, then slowly people begged off and went home. Eventually it was just Jacquie and me, but we were having too much fun to let it go that easily, so we perfomed a half dozen of duets and then headed to good old b34 for some Tisane de Noel which I got in Strasbourg. I had an absurd amount of fun, laughed harder than is polite, and generally enjoyed making a spectacle of myself in front of many acquaintances, friends and students. Love live the American traditions, and sharing them, however distorted they may become in translation, with the French.