Curiouser and Curiouser

This is another of my favorite parts during our holidays in Switzerland.

It begins with another fabulous dinner by John’s father, Per Erik, whose former lives were as famous imperial chefs. This year he made us pan-seared fois gras, served with toasted brioche and baked apples. Followed by braised duck legs in a delicious red wine sauce, potatoes au gratin, and a green salad, ending with slices of brie and reblochon. We finished everything off with one of my own creations: a real New York cheesecake. Two and a half pounds of cream cheese, eight eggs, cherries on the top … the works. We would have had coffee with it, but no decaf was to be found.

Then the fun starts. Actually, it starts much early on. There are no laws in Switzerland against individuals setting off fireworks. That means that anybody and everybody does it. And since Verbier is situated on the top of the mountain in the Alps, overlooking the valley and facing the mountains on the other side, and since our cabin is likewise situated above all the other buildings, and downtown included, we had a view of the entire show. All during dinner, all across the valley, fireworks went off in different directions and provided us with a nice backdrop.

Midnight, however, is when the show-offs emerge. As Verbier is a ski resort town, there are many very wealthy people. These many wealthy people then spend hundreds of thousands of francs on pyrotechnics to give the best firework displays. There are usually several such shows set off from different places, such that it is sometimes difficult to choose where to look.

There seems to be someone only a few doors down from us who gives us a show every year sometime after midnight, and this year was exceptionally good. The sparks just rained down on us and were magical. They were perfectly coordinated, amazing and big. With glasses of champagne, we toasted the new year and kissed, then went to bed with the curtains wide open to the mountains where the boom of fireworks lulled us to sleep.

Even though we are in Switzerland (which is easy for us Americans to confuse with Sweden), we nevertheless uphold proper Swedish traditions during Christmas. So what does that mean?

First of all, Swedes, like much of the rest of Europe, celebrate Christmas on the 24th, Christmas eve. This is a fairly strange custom for me, although I am used to it now. My family, of course, always celebrates on Christmas day (i.e. opening presents, eating a big dinner, etc).

Christmas eve here is quite nice, however, and begins with a traditional Swedish dinner. As a starter, we have smoked salmon on tunnbröd, a kind of large, round cracker made from flour, and topped with a tangy dijon-dill sauce. This is also accompanied (for those who can stomach it) pickled herring with a small glass of beer (Swiss, in our case). Next we have cold, sliced ham with mustard (very traditional), savoykål which is chopped cabbage baked in crème fraîche, different kinds of cheese along with fresh-baked bread, and homemade apple sauce. Finally, we end the dinner with hot Swedish meatballs, which are absolutely wonderful. For dessert this year, we had figs and cracked walnuts.

After the dinner, comes the gift-giving part of the evening. This is my favorite part. The Swedish tradition is to write a short poem for each gift that hints at what’s inside. Usually, one leaves out the last word which rhymes with the last word from the line before, and which gives away the gift. Some examples of the evening were:

A cd of Xavier Naidoo for Anna:

Top of the crop,
Best in German ___.

An ipod shuffle for John’s mother, Britten:

Small and hip with a convenient clip.

And the accompanying flashlight keychain:

When you shuffle around at night, use this little ___.

For the French novel by Balsac, Illusions Perdues:

Weeks in Verbier with no frost,
Talk about illusions lost.

And my favorite, for a book on evolution called The Ant and the Peacock:

How a roll of the dice,
And the fight against lice
Can get you stuck in a rut
And give you eyes on your butt.

I think Marcus got a kick out of the last one, although you’d have to read the book for it to make sense. Something about how lice messes up the symmetry of the eyes on a peacock’s tail, which makes it harder to find mates…etc.

Finally, after the excitement of the day and despite the early hour, it’s off to bed in preparation for another long day of skiing.

Actually, the days haven’t really been long of skiing due to the lack of snow, but that’s another story.

I was never a fan of global warming until I started coming to Verbier for Christmas.

I remember arriving here three years ago in a flutter of white fluffy snow, a giant snowman down below our window, white rooftops everywhere. The skiing was incredible. That was the year of my first powder adventure.

The next year, we were lucky enough to have one snow fall the night I arrived and lovely, white, uncut mountains the next day. But then after that, the sun was bright and the groomed slopes revealed more and more rocks and twigs.

This year, then, was something of a shock. The roads were dry and almost empty as we drove up to the pretty alpen resort. In fact, one could see muddy, brown grass in the lift on the way up to the slopes more often than white patches of snow. Surprisingly, the skiing was not so bad. There was just enough snow to make the slopes nicer than last time, but barely so. However, not many slopes are actually open, and they have only so many snow-making machines. Last year, they had to close parts of the glacier run due to melting, and who knows if they will even open any of it this year.

The good thing is that we have had almost empty slopes for the past three days. Even Christmas eve was fairly calm. After all, John was in an awful accident last year because of too many irresponsible skiers, so it is an awesome experience to have the slope to oneself.

John and Marcus still expect a holiday rush tomorrow and the day after. We’ll see. I happen to think that many people decided not to come here this year since the slopes were so bad last year. TeleVerbier, of course, doesn’t seem to mind. For me, as an American, I would tend to take the view that with bad snow conditions, the company should do even more to attract and keep the customers that still come. The Swiss, however, think differently. To them, it’s as if there’s no point in even opening the lifts, since no one’s coming anyway. Which was why, I believe, the Savoleyeres lift fellow opened at 9:15am this morning instead of at 8:45am and had distinctly red eyes as if he had been partying pretty heavily the night before..