ith chins tucked deep in their collars, the inhabitants of Ville de Reidy are walking through the crisp snow to the church, where padre Hanz Herbolz is ready to celebrate midnight mass. The big farming families Forbach en Solange are seated in the front pews. Despite the cold, the delightful smell of the traditional "pain d'épices" is wafting out of the open windows of Clement Felbach’s bakery.
This very night these will be eaten, after the mass, in every house in the village. And tomorrow, when the skiers have returned to the piste, the best "Gewurzstraminer" from wine shop "In Vino Veritas" will be uncorked and the entire village will draw up a chair in restaurant "Chez Gwendoline" for the satisfying Christmas meal. Then stories will be retold. Ville de Reidy’s stories, which give the inhabitants a place of their own in history and which leave tracks in the snow following in the footsteps of generations before them.
