When your passion is fèves...
One of the most vivid memories that I have of my mother, who passed away when I was just 5, is of baking an Epiphany Cake - and then being delighted to find the fève. What 5 year-old doesn't love to be King for a day! I had completely forgotten about the epiphany tradition until I stumbled across a box of fèves at a Paris Flea Market - the memories came pouring back and I fell in love with these tiny treasures. Upon our return home we had a hard time finding out more information, especially with my poor language skills. There wasn't a collectors group or single resource for buying or learning more about fèves here in the US.
After selling fèves and santons on Etsy for a year - we realized there was an avid collector base here and that the time was ripe for a collector site! ValueARTifacts on Etsy and Fevecollector.com are my escape and excuse! Selecting items, designing listings and building the store is a treasured escape from my very corporate job with a Consumer Package Goods company. And its also my excuse to buy and import all sorts of fun goodies. When my husband says - "What did you buy now?" - the answer is always "Its for the store!"
I love fèves! With my family I enjoy creating and modify customs to suit us personally, I feel these rituals and traditions are what bind us together as a family. There are so many fun things we do with fèves. We use them as rewards in our household; when my son was brave enough to perform a guitar solo in front of the entire school, he got a guitar fèves. When he earned his black belt in karate he got a tiny Asian Temple fève. He treasures these and knows exactly how he earned each one!
I also love the tiny nativity figures or Santons. During the French Revolution when churches were forcibly closed and life size nativities were outlawed, the dedicated french simply shrunk their nativities to a more personal and easily hidden size. No one was going to tell them they couldn't celebrate the birth of Christ exactly as they wanted!
