At 21:00, the Père Noël arrives. Well, Père Noël is actually Pierre, the 55-year-old groundskeeper, wearing only a Santa hat and a white beard glued to his chin. He drags a sack to the center of the salon.
The gift exchange here follows a tradition called Le Secret Nu (The Naked Secret), a variant of Secret Santa.
The rules:
I watch as a woman in her 60s unwraves a pair of bright red boxer shorts. She bursts out laughing, dangles them from her pinky finger, and declares, "I will use these to polish my car!" The room erupts. No shame. Only joy.
Traditional wellness often weaponizes shame. “Get your summer body.” “Burn off that meal.” “No pain, no gain.” This language implies that your body is a problem to be solved. The result? Chronic stress, disordered eating, exercise as punishment, and a fractured relationship with yourself. At 21:00, the Père Noël arrives
Genuine wellness, by contrast, is flexible, intuitive, and inclusive. It asks:
The evening begins at 19:00 with l’apéro. Because the human body loses heat rapidly, the naturist chef (a retired Michelin-star cook named Dominique) has engineered a thermal menu. I watch as a woman in her 60s
"We cannot serve cold salmon," Dominique laughs, his belly bare over the stove. "Cold food plus naked bodies equals blue lips. We serve heat."
The first course is Soupe à l’Oignon gratinée. The bowls are thick ceramic. The cheese is bubbling. The broth is scalding. Watching a group of nude diners lean over steaming onion soup, the steam fogging their glasses (the only allowed accessory), creates a surreal tableau of comfort. There is no fear of spilling—hot soup on bare thighs is a great teacher of caution. dangles them from her pinky finger
Then come the Escargots de Bourgogne. Traditionally, this is a messy affair of garlic butter dripping down chins. In a textile setting, people worry about staining their shirts. Here, there is no worry. The butter drips onto the chest. A napkin wipes it off. The body is the canvas, and garlic butter is the paint.