Parlez-vous anglais?

Part of the job description of being an English assistant in France, it seems, is being laughed at when I speak French (because of my accent), laughed at when I speak English (because of my accent), and laughed at when I talk about Ameircan Christmas traditions (still can't figure out why this is deserving of laughter, but whatever).  So, cette semaine (set suh-mene: this week), I decided to give my students a taste of their own médicament (meh-dee-ka-mehn: medicine): chants de Noël (shant duh no-ell: Christmas carols) sung together in chorus and original Christmas stories using brand-new English vocab.  The result?  My ultimate form of revenge: a chance to laugh at them for once.  On the inside, of course.

Here is one of my favorite Christmas stories, written by a group of three 17 year-old boys:

"Once upon a time, Santa Claus was distributing gifts for children with his reindeers.  He stopted in a pub and he can't leave because he was too drunked.  Elves helpt him to continue and he managed to finish the distibuting."

Doesn't that story just make you all warm and fuzzy inside?  After all the stress I've experienced these past few weeks between moving, Christmas shopping, and preparing for this week's week-long séminaire anglais (sem-een-ar ahn-glay: English Retreat) with a group of 50 sixth-graders in the mountains, something about this story has just inspired in me the true meaning of Christmas: Santa in a bar getting drunk with his elves.  If Santa did exist, I'm pretty sure that this is a more realistic version of how Christmas would réussir (ray-oo-seer: pan out).  Needless to say, these students definitely got an A+ for effort.