"Quelle est cette odeur agréable?"
A young Pip Bernadotte yawned and his grip on his grandmother's hand loosened as the choir began to sing. He began to sway slightly with the rhythm of the song and his grandmother pinched his hand. He made it through another verse before he began to rock again, wider this time, and she did it harder.
"Philippe! N'endors pas!" she hissed at him.
"Nathalie," his grandfather said in a low, gruff voice. "Don't be so hard on the poor boy. It's midnight. Normally, he would have been in bed four hours ago and he spent most of the day running around."
"It's midnight Mass; it's only once a year. He should stay awake. It would be sinful for him to fall asleep."
Pip quietly thought that it was sinful of her to put words in God's mouth because he was fairly sure that if God was worth his salt, he would not make them wait until the wee hours of the morning to celebrate the birth of his son. He was not alone in this; he had heard Grand-père grumbling about the same thing. However, he kept this to himself because he knew well that he would hear about it for weeks on end if he dared to voice it.
His hand slipped out of his grandmother's as his eyelids began to droop once more. He startled when he felt Grand-père's hand on his head, but went with the action as he was gently leaned against the older man's hip. Grateful for the support, he closed his eyes as an arm slipped around his shoulders to steady him as Pip drifted off to sleep, dreaming of the feast that would follow Mass.
Le Réveillon.