The Bailliage of Turkey in Istanbul celebrated Christmas and the New Year with an extended Sunday brunch at the Mövenpick Hotel Istanbul. This is the third year that the event has been held and it now seems it will be an annual event in the years to come.

Families with young children, families with grandchildren, and adults without children… all enjoyed the day. It was truly a merry event that lasted for five hours!

The children were greeted in the hotel lobby by Bailli Délégué Mohamed Hammam together with his wife Maria who distributed Christmas hats for the boys and hair bands for the girls. All the children were also given a mini replica of a purple coloured Chaine Ribbon, thus symbolizing them as the future of the Chaîne.

Pianist Judith Uluğ, Dame de la Chaîne, accompanied the Christmas songs performed by the professional opera singer, Lynn Çağlar. Everyone did their best to sing along, while Grand Officier Ousama Najjar gave a stellar performance in accompanying Lynn in a couple of the songs!

Later, we enjoyed the music spontaneously played on the piano by Judith and Saba, daughter of our members Mine and Onur Koca. Judith immediately started planning next year’s repertoire … also working with other young talents of course!

Needless to say, the buffet was delectable. As always, while making our selections from the buffet we were warmed by Chef Giovanni Terraciano’s always smiling face and charmed by his culinary skills.

Joining in with the festive atmosphere Chef Giovanni organized a baking and decorating competition, where all the children were provided with ginger bread dough, which they had to shape as a Christmas figure, have it baked, then decorated with multi-coloured icing sugar. Naturally there had to be a winner chosen but the reality is that all who participated were great achievers.

It was gratifying to see the children growing and developing a palate for good food. For instance, there was a criticism about the pizza from one little girl. She was so sure about what she wanted and explained it in a straightforward way: “This pizza Margarita is not properly cooked, so I ordered a new one!”

So, the next generation of the Chaîne is coming! Once again, we should pronounce our firm belief that enjoying good food around the table with the family is an excellent school for a child. All of us cherished this time spent with family and friends once again and greeted the imminent arrival of Christmas and the New Year together!

Nihal Bursa
Chargée de Presse