The fall semester fourth block French students were in for a treat when they walked into their class on Monday, December 20, where French teacher Jason Swanson had prepared his classroom for an annual cake decorating competition.
“This [tradition] was something that Madame Nordmeyer suggested that we do for all semester classes, because we always do a crepe party and learn how to make crepes and the tradition behind crepes in the spring semester,” he said.
In this French tradition, people used to burn a large piece of wood for 7 days to bring the Sun back. This is a winter solstice celebration, but instead of burning wood people now decorate cakes that look like logs.
Swanson sent out a Google Form for voting to commence at the end of the allotted half hour of decorating. Students walked around the classroom viewing the bûche de Noël logs made by their peers. Each student submitted a vote and the results came in. The Fourth Block winners were Makayla Ruiter ‘22 and Kal Lindell ‘23, who created what they described as a “traditional yule log”.
“It’s a fun class,” Ruiter said, “especially when you can do random stuff like this.”
