The Christmas Kalends of Provence by Thomas A. Janvier

But in spite of their eager natural love for all good things eatable, the Provencaux also are poets; and, along with the cooking, another matter was in train that was wholly of a poetic cast. This was the making of the creche: a representation with odd little figures and accessories of the personages and scene of the Nativity -- the whole at once so naive and so tender as to be possible only among a people blessed with rare sweetness and rare simplicity of soul.

The making of the creche is especially the children's part of the festival -- though the elders always take a most lively interest in it -- and a couple of days before Christmas, as we were returning from one of our walks, we fell in with all the farm children coming homeward from the mountains laden with creche-making material: mosses, lichens, laurel, and holly; this last of smaller growth than our holly, but bearing fine red berries, which in Provencal are called _li poumeto de Sant-Jan_ -- "the little apples of Saint John."