Carnival and Catwalks

This week at Lily's school they celebrated, "carnaval". It's Europe's version of Mari Gras. A lot of the cities and towns around us have large parades before Ash Wednesday with flowers and candy and costumes. One of the largest "Carnaval" in France is in Nice and we've heard it's really something. We've never made it to Nice to see it, I guess it's the Protestantism in us.

Anyway, the French don't celebrate Halloween at all. When they think of Halloween they think of "All Souls Day", "Day of the Dead", I don't know, all the weird, dark, devil-ish stuff. Their kids do NOT walk around in benign, happy, character costumes at the of October. But they do wear costumes during "Carnaval".

This year at Lily school (a different school than the one she was at last year), they planned their big parade with the kids on Tuesday. Lily was thrilled and barely slept Monday night she was so excited to wear her dress-up wedding dress, lovingly handmade for her by her Grandma Connie. I dutifully packed it all--the dress, veil, and flower bouquet in the her bag and sent her to school.

I arrived late for the parade. A very badly twisted ankle in combination with ZERO places to park anywhere close to the building are my excuses. Not that that's good enough. Because I missed Lily's class' parade.

But, when I walked into the school courtyard I couldn't get over how they were doing the "parade." They had five small, school-room tables lined up in a row, and they were having the kids walk, one by one, across this make-shift stage. Music blaring, it was like a cat-walk for elementary school kids.

there are terrible pictures, I know, but you can kinda get an idea of what was happening...

Oh my word. My fear-of-man-ruled, totally self-conscience heart jumped in my chest as I scanned the crowd for Lily. I couldn't imagine my little mini-me (in terms of personality) strutting her stuff on top of these table, like I was watching the other kids do. In a way, I was relieved I wasn't there when it was her class' turn. Really, I couldn't have handled the pressure I would have felt for her. I found her in the crowd, called her name, and she gave me this sweet look...she was fine. I was so proud of her.

It was just a French moment. Maybe I'm more sensitive to it because this week is "Fashion Week" in Paris and on the nightly news they have taken time out of each incredibly busy news-cycle to flash what weird, bizarre looking "costumes" Dior, Channel, Hermes are releasing for their spring lines. Maybe I'm just catwalk-ed out.

Regardless of the format, Lily had a great time. I arrived so uninformed and so late that I didn't waste a second of the day worrying about if she would succeed in walking across the tables by herself.

A picture of the teachers who walked across the tables all together at the end. Where is OSHA? I thought for sure someone was going to fall and break something!