Alliance Française d'Oklahoma City Bastille Day Celebration
Alliance Française d'Oklahoma City is celebrating France’s national holiday Fête nationale française/le 14 juillet from 1:00 - 4:00 PM on Sunday, July 14th in a beautiful historic setting with French food, music, prizes, and fun games.
This annual celebration is a casual, come and go event for our community. Due to the oppressive heat in July, we hold the event in an air-conditioned historic building in a local park that is equipped with networked large TV screens in each room. Members and guests have the option of enjoying inside events including music, sing-alongs and games as well as outside events such as pétanque, frisbee and basketball.
As a small chapter, we keep costs down by providing water, a small gift and a few food items to supplement the members’ often elaborate pique-nique français, where anything goes, from charcuterie et fromage to le Big Mac!
After an initial meet and greet, we kick things off by playing a video on the large screens, so we can sing along to La Marseillaise with French subtitles. Some families prefer to dine on the lawn, but most people enjoy their indoor picnics, while we play a video of highlights and fireworks from this year’s Paris Fête nationale française celebration that was recorded earlier the same day.
Live and recorded French music inspires singing and dancing and everyone young at heart enjoys a puppet show!
Over the last few years, this event has evolved to include a couple of friendly competitions that have become enthusiastic fan favorites. The first is an outside pétanque match and the second is a French themed indoor jeopardy game. We end the event with door prize drawings for donated items from our partners and members. These include items such as food gift baskets, books, a free French class, and dinner for two at a local restaurant. A good time is had by all!