Eight days before Christmas,  beneath an eight-metre Christmas tree installed in the Salle des Fêtes,  some 900 children from across France were welcomed to the Elysée Palace by Carla and Nicolas Sarkozy.   The children, aged between six and nine, had first been to a show at the Olympia theatre. After a four o’clock tea, it was time for presents.  Wide-eyed with delight – and amid much kissing and shoving and photos and signatures and sweet-eating  — the children received their gifts from the hands of the president and his wife.  It was Carla Bruni-Sarkozy’s third Christmas at the Elysée, and for the occasion a dozen charities were present (The French Fireman’s Orphans Fund,  French Centre for Childhood Protection , the Auteuil Foundation, the Aids charity Draw Me a Sheep, the Muscular Dystrophy Association and others).  The children were from Pas-de-Calais, Puy-de-Dôme, Morbihan, Seine-Saint-Denis, Bas-Rhin and Lozère as well as from families of Elysée staff. After accepting a bouquet of flowers presented by Clément Petit – gold medallist in floristry at the Calgary Worldskills competition 2009 – the First Lady handed out the gifts alongside her husband :  car-racing tracks or Playmobile for the boys, fairy kitchens or design kits for the girls.  In a nod to current affairs – a day ahead of the president’s departure to the Copenhagen environnental summit – the children also took away a small booklet entitled The sustainable development daily news.