Toulouse: why the New Year’s Eve tradition is being lost
What are the New Year’s gifts? Letter carriers, garbage collectors, janitors… see their end-of-year nest egg shrinking. Only the elders carry on the tradition.
In his postman’s bag, Stéphane, 49, still carries a few almanacs that he distributes during his tour. These calendars whose covers represent animals, mountain landscapes or flowers, he sells about fifty at the end of the year. Postman for 26 years, Stéphane has observed, over the years, that “this tradition is being lost enormously. It is especially the elderly who take us today, ”he admits. Thanks to the sale of these calendars, Stéphane pocketed “between 500 and 600 euros. When I started, it was more like the thirteenth month but we lived in a different society, ”adds the man with the yellow bike.
The same goes for André, a steward for 5 years at Windsor, in Saint-Georges. In this bourgeois residence, he knows everyone “but does not call anyone by the first name, it is the same for me. Respect is mutual, ”he explains. For him, the New Year’s gifts are linked “to personal services rendered during the year to residents, because for our usual work, we have our salary,” he notes. Like the postman Stéphane, André notes that New Year’s gifts “are on the way out. It is above all the elders who perpetuate the tradition because they appreciate the services rendered to them and they know the value ”. It happens that the steward is thanked at the end of the year by “a ticket, a bottle of champagne, wine, or chocolates”. In 2020, André particularly felt the drop in New Year’s gifts. “With the covid, people referred more to themselves while they asked us even more,” he adds.
“400 to 500 € in forecast”
Momo, now. It ensures the maintenance of the Saint-Georges gallery as well as that of several adjoining buildings. “I’ve been there for 20 years,” he says. Suffice to say, that he also knows the world. And for the end-of-year bonuses “everything is going well, I have some”, he blurted out. Momo plans to touch “between 400 and 500 euros. It’s better than nothing “. By this gesture, the maintenance agent sees a thank you for his goodwill “because I am not supposed to go to change a light bulb in people, it is not my job”, he slips.
Hervé, another concierge “who provides a lot of services” also sees his New Year’s gifts “diminishing every year, and more and more”. So when he receives little attentions at the end of the year – “tickets, baskets, boxes of chocolates, …”, it gives him great pleasure “because generally it is also accompanied by a Happy New Year card”.
A garbage collector: “It’s not what it used to be”
Rachid, garbage collector in Toulouse for 31 years, is at the origin of the calendar “The adventures of Pancrasus”, distributed for several years, in homage to two deceased colleagues. In three decades of work, he has noticed that the New Year’s gifts “had really, really, really gone down. It’s not what it used to be ”. For this garbage collector, “the El Dorado of the 80s and 90s where we made 3000 francs” is a long way off. “At the time, we knew people. When we worked for calendars, it was user friendly. We went home, they offered us a drink and cakes ”. Today, there are evenings where Rachid and his colleagues “earn € 60 for three, by walking for miles and miles. “But as long as we can take some money, we keep going. This gives us balm in the heart but this tradition will be lost, that’s for sure, ”concludes Rachid.