Acadians celebrate Christmas traditions with songs, stories and that special cookie
As Christmas approached within the late 1800s, Acadian youngsters on P.E.I. would sit up for one particular current — a cookie constructed from white pastry, maybe left over from making bread, known as a naulet.
Island historian Georges Arsenault calls it “cousin of the gingerbread man.”
“They might put raisins for the eyes and buttons for the coat and that is the present that the child would get from his godparents,” he stated.
“Santa Claus hadn’t found the Acadians at the moment — that is within the 1860s as much as the 1900s one thing like that. So it was fairly particular for youths to get a naulet for Christmas.”
The naulet was one of many traditions stored alive on Sunday on the Acadian Museum of P.E.I. in Miscouche.
Dozens of individuals attended the occasion, organized by the Sister Antoinette DesRoches Historic Committee. It additionally included conventional Acadian Christmas songs and tales.
Eleven-year-old Doriane Ondoua of Wellington was among the many folks having fun with the festivities.
“I made decorations for my Christmas tree, and I made cookies and I made a drawing and I made a portrait and I put a bunch of various stickers on it and I made it fairly.”
The occasion has not been held for the previous few years attributable to COVID-19. Final yr, it needed to be cancelled the day earlier than the occasion attributable to an outbreak.
Sunday’s “good” celebration made up for it, stated Noella Richard, web site supervisor for the Acadian Museum.
“I am so glad that we are able to uphold this custom as a result of it was executed in years previous and it was at all times fairly common.”
