We went to the Christmas Market and Christmas festivities this afternoon in Chateaubriant, and it really got us all into a festive mood.
The afternoon was filled with music, dancers, street entertainers, horse and carriages, pony rides, fresh seasonal food and hot wine, and of course the arrival of Father Christmas.
To start the afternoon off, we were entertained by a marching group playing percussion instruments, which I had seen before when they played at the music festival earlier in the year. Starting in front of the Hotel de Ville, they were really entertaining and enjoyable and had difficulty finding a way through the crowd.
We were then entertained by some street entertainers who had a red train as their backdrop, a couple of musicians to add to the atmosphere, a couple of women bizarrely dressed, who beside doing some mad dancing, were narrating the whole performance and interacting with the Crowd. Finally there was a young man who was doing some of the magic and entertaining. The show was only brief, about 15-20 minutes, but highly entertaining, before they chugged up the street with their train to their next performance.
Whilst waiting for Father Christmas to parade up the street in his carriage, some people in stilts kept us entertained with one of them producing some extremely large bubbles produced by a home made net on sticks, bizarre but it worked with some enormous bubbles being produced, which the children enjoyed popping.
After Father Christmas had passed pass, all the children gathered with ballons of all different colours in hand and upon the signal given by Miss Pays de la Loire, they all released them into the air.
Most of the shops were also open today, and there were a good number of stalls for the Christmas market selling a variety of seasonal goods and gift ideas as well as food and hot wine being sold. Through the streets there was the Horse and carriages as well as the poney rides which meant the town was busier than usual.
In the Marche Couvert, there were various arts and crafts being displayed, children were being entertained by a drama show and there plenty of opportunity to do some painting and have their photos taken in Father Christmas House.
To end the afternoon off, we watched some of the show in the Church where a Brass ensemble who were from Pouance and a Chorale group from Chateaubriant entertained a packed church with many festive songs.
A Lovely afternoon, which really got us all in the mood for Christmas. I have taken some photos as you can see to give you an idea, and will post some videos over the next couple of days.
