CARROLL GARDENS — One Christmas, while in Ecuador, Father Alexandre Morard was depressed.
Temperatures in the mid-80s meant there was no chance for snow. That made him homesick for the Swiss Alps where he grew up skiing world-class slopes and hiking through vast forests.
Father Morard remembered praying for snow as a kid, but not just for skiing.
“It is the best gift we can have,” he said. “Because for us, Christmas without snow is not Christmas.”
Father Morard is parochial vicar for St. Paul and St. Agnes Parish which serves Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill.
His boyhood home is Ayent, Switzerland, nestled in the Alps of southern Switzerland, where French is the spoken language.
Father Morard’s family belonged to the historic St. Romain Parish. According to the local tourism board, the church, built in the 1860s, “is distinguished by its grandeur, luminosity, and numerous decorations.”
“Believers and nonbelievers alike are captivated by its beauty,” the tourism board reports.
Christmas, however, inspires decorations that challenge the creativity of the parish each holiday season, Father Morard said.
He described how the pastor traditionally leads the altar servers in building a massive Nativity scene.
The figurines of the Holy Family are the only things reused each year. But materials for the stable — pieces of wood, bark, and other foliage — are gathered from the surrounding forests. Likewise, families craft Nativity scenes for their homes with local organic materials.
“The general setup was that every year is a new one,” Father Morard said. “It wasn’t just something that you buy at the supermarket.”
Father Morard said his home was in a rural area where heavy snowfall prevented Christmas caroling from house to house.
Instead, people enjoyed performances of holiday music, religious and secular, at the annual downtown Christmas markets or at the parish’s Christmas concert.
These are the same tunes sung all over the world, but in French, Father Morard said.
The Christmas tree tradition — an evergreen trimmed with ornaments — began in Germany and spread throughout Europe and North America. So, Father Morard said, a Swiss Christmas tree, also procured from local forests, is very similar to those in the United States.
But a key distinction are decorations made from fine chocolate, a major product of Switzerland. The treats cover many Christmas trees in Father Morard’s hometown.
“There are these kinds of chocolates with a special filling made of marzipan,” he said. “It’s a bit creamy, and it’s made from almonds and other kinds of flavors.”
He said the thin foil that covers the candies shimmers with reflections from the tree’s Christmas lights.
“The deal was to have the tree full of them,” Father Morard said. “For the kids, the game was to steal as many as possible before the parents started noticing they were missing.”
Also like parishes around the world, St. Romain celebrated midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. Afterwards, the family returned home to open gifts.
“The idea of staying awake to open the gifts was kind of the trick to have kids go to Mass at midnight,” Father Morard said.
But the families also enjoy holiday treats after Mass, like the thin, crepe-like waffles, tiny clementine oranges, and lots of nuts that had to be cracked from their shells — not released from a vacuum-sealed can.
“That was a lot of fun for the kids,” Father Morard said. “There is a lot of heavy food with lots of calories during the winter months. And with the extra food and sweets is the mulled wine. The adults — they are rejoicing in that, for sure.”
Father Morard’s prayers for a white Christmas regularly bore fruit, drawing tourists from all over the world to ski.
“Skiing is a very important part of our lives during winter, if I may say so,” Father Morard said. “People come to enjoy the beauty of the mountains.
“One of the advantages we have is the sun — 362 days of the year. It’s a little bit like Colorado.”
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of six articles where priests in the diocese who come from other countries reflect on their boyhood parishes and hometowns at Christmas.