They appeared, as usual, through the hut, parked in the center of the passage, in herbs and encharcations so as not to dirty the mills, and went through the road, tracing, to the porch, with a large dish in the hand. As usual, the bûche was ready. In French bûche it can be a dead wood, a stupid person, a fall… in the case of then, as in the whole year, it was a biscote; we could call it a trunk, but let's call it büx, a bit to immerse ourselves in the environment. At least he weighed two or three kilos of gout if he calculated it according to his wife's balance when walking.

We all have bücheros around, they come every year to family food, on Christmas Eve. They're remote families, where they're three or four degrees, or maybe the neighborhoods of their sister-in-law, so in and of themselves they couldn't be there. I say that they have no obligation to do so, that they can do everything they want: go running on the mountain, try a good restaurant, watch a report on TV5 Monde, be in the village inn criticizing everything seen with their friends. But no, they prefer to go back to Christmas food, because they don't live far, and they say it's a pleasure to see others. However, the experience of years reveals that the main motive may be different. In any case, provided they don't lack the air, they're there.

From Aperitifa, the strains were spreading: between two unhelpful talks, on the appointment of François Bayrou as Prime Minister of France, the others asked what they said. They were given the confusing “Ikusi” answer, and instead of being silent, they began to scare the man, the native, the capable, whom they would have a lot of courage. A bunch of champagne fell into his throat. "With that has-beeen? There will be no revolution to start!” someone stumbled. Certainly, it was about walking more carefully and finer so that the lunch truce did not go down...

Around the table there was everything. There are those who do not need to work, who exercise the seven powers to have decent work, who have difficulty in attracting workers, because today people are unnecessary and with ambitions such as the SMIC [French inter-professional minimum wage]. There are those who have paid the house, those who have seen the rent grow at home over and over again, those who still have fifteen years of credit and are “investing”. There are those who do not pay taxes and are engaged in circumventing income tax every year. There were four trips a year that they had not made and that year after year they went to their usual destination. There are people who have Mercedesa and who walk through an old Twingo. They're suffocated with debts and they don't know what to do with money. Heads, staff, officials, independent. They kept walking relentlessly, happily, until the time of the disaster came.

As always, the bücha was guarded with vanilla cream, a long bouquet of Grand Marnier threaded in a small pot and a piece of chocolate, all adorned with two dozen small ingredients.

Each of the goats went through his throat to rest in his belly: the ballast of life, the weight of change. To do that, they come, with their hand, to see that nothing shrinks, to see if the minuscule successes that others can achieve at the end of a heavy year do not subject to their immense personal achievement and make sure that things will go the same way at least one year.