Pascal would never admit it, but I think he secretly looks forward to this time of year for the holiday music on all of the radio stations.  To my knowledge, having radio stations dedicate an entire month to playing Christmas music is a uniquely American phenomonen.  He claims not to like it, but I’ve heard him humming Deck the Halls and tapping his toes along to Sleigh Ride:

Just hear those sleigh bells jingling,
Ring ting tingling too
Come on, it’s lovely weather
For a sleigh ride together with you

One of the most popular holiday songs of all time, Sleigh Ride has been covered by an amazing number of artists, including:  Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, The Andrew Sisters, The Muppets, Johnny Mathis, Amy Grant, Harry Connick, Jr., Debbie Gibson, Neil Diamond, Garth Brooks, The Spice Girls, Neil Diamond, and Clay Aiken. There’s a verse in the song that makes reference to Currier & Ives, probably the first time I’d ever heard of the duo. It wasn’t until years later that I understood that Currier & Ives were famous printmakers.

There’s a happy feeling
Nothing in the world can buy
When they pass around the coffee and the pumpkin pie
It’ll nearly be like a picture print by Currier and Iives
These wonderful things are the things
We remember all through our lives!

So just who were Currier and Ives? Only the most
successful printmaking firm of all-time. Headed by two men (with the last names of Currier and Ives), they operated in New York City from 1834-1907, producing black and white prints (lithographs) from paintings that were then hand-colored. Lithographic prints could be reproduced quickly and purchased inexpensively, and the firm called itself "the Grand Central Depot for Cheap and Popular Prints", advertising its lithographs as "colored engravings for the people", i.e.  art for the masses.

The company was prolific, publishing at least 7,500 lithographs in the firm’s 72 years of operation. Artists produced two to three new images every week, selling more than a million prints. Currier & Ives had an uncommon flair for gauging the people’s interests.  They employed (or used the work of) many celebrated artists of the day to create the original drawings which were then printed and later colored by hand. Over the years their selection of prints broadened to include almost every subject. There were horses, kittens, the Brooklyn Bridge, Christopher Columbus, historical events and catastrophes (like the explosion aboard the USS Princeton, 1844).  Of course, there were also plenty of winter scenes such as sleigh rides in the country and ice-skating in Central Park.

This is the first year that South ‘n France is offering a Currier & Ives bon bon tin, and we have feeling that just like centuries ago, it’s sure to be a popular seller…

Our South ‘n France Christmas catalog ships today.  It hardly seems possible that this is our fourth holiday season in the bon bon business. We’ve come a long way since that first year, I can tell you that! For our first holiday season, we didn’t have a catalog, just a tri-fold brochure. For year two, we changed our format to the current catalog size and added a holiday story, a parody of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. That catalog received rave reviews from our customers. In fact, some customers would call us up just to tell us how much they loved the story, without ever placing an order.  (Talk about depressing for us – we really do intend for our catalog to actually sell product, not just amuse our customers!). 

Last year, we followed up with a parody on the film Elf. Both Pascal and I appeared as elves in the catalog that told the story of Leon the Bon Bon and the other bon bon elves. This summer, when it was time to start work on our catalog once again, I emailed our brilliant graphic designer, Brent Holloman, with a list of possible suggestions for the catalog’s theme. Brent liked "Mr. French:  The Grinch Who Tried to Stop Christmas!" best, so we immediately began brainstorming ideas.

Lucky for me, Brent has a talented illustrator-friend who worked for the most famous animation company in the world. I fondly referred to Brent and Brett as my B-Team. Brent created a rough layout for the catalog, and then Brett drew a series of rough sketches that where meant to look like Pascal (as the Grinch) and me (as Little Charley-Lou). This was the most difficult part of the process for us. I just couldn’t see the resemblance in those caricatures; I thought that the very first rendering of me looked like Phyllis Diller! Brett was extremely patient with our vain requests, and considering that we have never met (he was working from photographs), I think he did a great job of capturing our personalities as animated Seuss-like characters. His illustrations are sheer genius (you’ve got to see the "Hand" that dips the bon bons!)

Brett sent his sketches to Brent who colored them in on the computer. I got to spend a few minutes watching Brent color, and it’s such a cool process! It looks like even more fun than coloring with crayons. Brent has a great eye for detail, and he added fonts and dividing lines and lots of graphic touches that further enhanced the idea of our French Grinch story. I really do think that the final result would make a wonderful storybook.

We hope you enjoy this year’s holiday catalog, and we’d love to hear your suggestions for next year’s theme!

The fun we have at our Bon Bon Parties is often compared to the hilarity of that famous I Love Lucy episode – the one where Lucy and Ethel go to work in a chocolate factory. They can’t keep up with the speed of the conveyor belt, so they stuff their pockets, their mouths, and their blouses with chocolate. We don’t have a conveyor belt, but we do allow people to stuff as much chocolate into their mouths as they wish during the bon bon-making demonstration. And, there is inevitably a lot of laughter!

The Candy Factory episode is actually entitled Job Switching because Ricky and Fred think doing housework is much easier than earning money. Naturally, Lucy and Ethel think the opposite. So, the boys try doing the housework while the girls attempt to hold down a job at a candy factory. Often, people tell me they wish they had my job; that being a Bon Bon Queen must be an easy life. I’m not complaining, but it often feels like that speed-increasing conveyor belt. It’s not just about sitting around and eating bon bons!

I will say, Lucy’s job interview at the candy factory felt a lot like my first interview with a professional in the chocolate industry:

Supervisor: Ricardo, I’m going to put you to work chocolate dipping. You say you’ve had experience.
Lucy: Oh yes, ma’am. Yes ma’am. I’m a dipper from way back.
Supervisor: Yes?
Lucy: They used to call me "the big dipper."

Of course, Lucy’s only dipping experience (like mine) was dipping her hands into a box of chocolates. Reportedly that epsiode was Lucille Ball’s favorite, and I can’t help but wonder if it was because she knew it was a piece of comic genius or if it was just because she loved stuffing her mouth with all of that yummy chocolate. It wasn’t the only episode where Lucy downs a whole lot of sweets: on one show, Lucy goes to Schwab’s Drugstore because she wants to be discovered by Lana Turner. While she waits to be discovered, she has 3 chocolate malts, 2 hot fudge sundaes, 1 banana split, and 1 pineapple soda!

This summer, I was lucky enough to receive a custom handmade bag that encapsulates the fun of that wonderfully wacky piece of television history. You’ll notice that my bag even has a little front pocket, perfect for transporting bon bons. I have a few more things in common with Lucy besides job experience in a chocolate factory. Here’s more insight via some memorable lines from the show: 

Ricky Ricardo: Lucy’s actin’ crazy.
Fred Mertz: Crazy for Lucy, or crazy for ordinary people?

Ricky Ricardo: Lucy, you got some ’splainin’ to do!  

Arthur: But… You’re a woman.
Lucy Ricardo: Yes, my husband likes me that way.

Ricky Ricardo: Fred, I’ve got an awful problem on my hands.
Fred Mertz: You should have thought about that before you married her.

Lucy Ricardo: [at false seance, introducing Ethel in disguise] This is Madam Ethel Mertzola. She’ll be our medium tonight. She’s psychopathic.

Ricky Ricardo: What’s the matter with you? Are you crazy or something?

Variety is the spice of life. It’s why we have seven different bon bon flavors and why we take great pleasure in helping brides and grooms design custom wedding favor boxes that capture the spirit of their special day. 

When Pascal and I got married, long before the idea of bon bon business had ever been conceived, we had chocolates at both our wedding dinner (in Manhattan) and our wedding reception (which followed six months later in Wilmington). My friend Jannette bought us white chocolate Eiffel Towers to serve as favors to the twenty guests who attended our actual wedding. When it came time to plan for the reception, we decided to buy more white chocolate Eiffel Towers, but pair them with liquor-infused truffles that we would put in favor boxes at each place setting.  They would also double as placecards for our guests.

Our wedding colors were lavendar and white, which were determined by Pascal. He wore a suit instead of a tuxedo to our small, intimate wedding, and chose his tie at Thomas Pink. I told him that whatever tie color he chose would determine the color scheme for our wedding.  Et voila!

I bought favor boxes online and lavendar silk flowers in the wholesale district of Manhattan, and spent weeks creating handmade gift tags, the backs of which I dipped in glue and then white glitter. When we started assembling the boxes, they didn’t look nearly as lush as I wanted them to look. Something was missing–poufs!! I decided that we needed an organza pouf under each silk flower. The poufs had to be sewn by hand, and I recruited my long-suffering friend Cory (who has been roped into a million crazy jobs like this at Dupray family parties) to sew poufs which I would then glue along with the silk flowers to each favor box. After many delirious hours (and many hot glue gun burns), the boxes were finally assembled.  Then, because I simply couldn’t leave anything to chance, we went through the 120-person guest list and tried to determine which of the four truffle favors each guest would like best. At the time, I didn’t consider myself to be a Bridezilla, but as I tell this story, I’m thinking I may have to reconsider…

What I know for sure is that my first serious favor-making experience taught me a lot in preparation for the bon bon business. Since then, we’ve made thousands of custom favors (our largest order to date was 650 for one event), and I’ve learned what to do and what not to do. I also try to caution do-it-yourself brides against taking on this task. It seems quite easy, but it’s much harder than it looks.  Our last do-it-yourself bride delegated the assembly of her favor boxes (which she purchased independently before consulting us) to her parents who put every last one of them together backwards. They all had to be re-folded so that the bon bons wouldn’t fall out the bottom! At just $3 per completed favor box with one bon bon nestled inside, it’s more than worth it to leave the work to us professionals!

Here are is the wedding favor that started it all followed by favor boxes we’ve recently created to match the themes and the moods of three very different events:

For me, flowers are much like chocolate. What is there not to love? I guess that’s why I so enjoy reading Debra Graham’s (Bloomers Floral Design) blog. Debra has great style (I love her vintage-inspired brochure!) and she shares a philosophy similar to my own. On the Bloomers website, Debra has this wonderful proverb: "When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other." It’s a great companion to one of my favorite quotes by Emma Goldman: "I’d rather have roses on my table than diamonds on my neck."

Not so long ago, Debrah featured Parisian flower shops on her blog. She is right, the French do indeed like flowers in abundance.  They also have a strong preference for monochromatic arrangments.  It reminded me of this story:

I was living in France during tulip season. I love tulips; they are one of my favorite flowers. At the time, in many of the American shelter magazines, you could find an ad for Martha Stewart paint colors. The ad featured a paint can with a huge, luscious bouquet of all different colored pastel tulips coming out of the can. I thought it was beautiful, and I had the idea of re-creating this bouquet as a gift for a friend. 

I went to one of the neighborhood Parisian florists where there were buckets and buckets of unwrapped tulips in a rainbow of pretty colors. I greeted the florist with the obligatory "Bonjour, Madame!" and asked for her help. I explained that I wanted to buy a large bouquet of tulips, but not just in one color. Rather, I hoped to take a couple of tulips from each bucket and mix them together to create a colorful pastel bouquet.

"Mais non!", the shopkeeper exclaimed in absolute horror, "Why ever would you want to do this?!"
"Because I like lots of color", I replied, stupidly adhering to my American-instilled attitude that the customer is always right.
But the florist refused. In France, the shopkeeper is always right. She told me that monochromatic bouquets were far more sophisticated, far more chic. I should trust her expert advice and stick with one color of tulips as she simply could not tolerate the idea of mixed tulip bouquet leaving her shop. 
I held fast to my desire to have a mixed bouquet, and she held firm to her monochromatic principles. I left her shop highly insulted (and without my pastel tulips)! 

Truth is, I appreciate all kinds of flowers from the humble dandelion to the most exotic orchid. I love to see fruits and vegetables and cabbages and greens and branches blended into beautiful bouquets. But, I also love the striking drama of one single flower repeated in abundance. I may not have understood her at the time, but now I realize that "Madame" was right. The understated elegance of a monochromatic bouquet is very… I believe the term in France these days is "de classe"  ("chic" has become "passe".)

No matter the flower, no matter the arrangement, no matter the vase, I think Iris Murdcok had it right: People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us!