Hundreds of villagers came onto the streets to cheer the children on.
And although he will cheer himself hoarse this summer supporting Giovanni Trapattoni's side in Poland at the European Championships, he is not the kind of person to wrap himself up in a tricolour or knot a green, white and gold scarf around his neck.
But it would be wrong to read too much general market cheer into Kingfisher's better-than-expected 22% rise in interim pre-tax profits to £439m.
Perhaps Bono, who has spent years persuading the world that there's an activist inside of each and every one of us, should set aside his pride and give the protesters in the crowd a cheer.
To cheer him up, Claudia reads the old baron another excerpt from Inge's diary and we're back in 1864.
Related: Charles Kennedy's battle with the bottle and Britain's alcohol attitude problem | Letters Tales of extreme drunkenness are related between friends with "Good one, mate" cheer and pride.
While the subsequent two months have provided little cheer, though, yesterday gave something close to the ideal conclusion.
So much here prefigures the tropes found in modern winter literature: family and friends gather for warmth and jollity, feasting is the order of the day, good cheer is lubricated by heroic quantities of booze … and then the stranger arrives.
Parents seated on rows of wooden benches clap, cheer and take photographs on smartphones.
The figures, which put the government on track to meet its annual deficit reduction target, will cheer Tory backbenchers who have seen the Treasury consistently borrow more than projected over last four years.
I also cheer myself up by rehashing conversations and remembering nights out with my best friends back home in London, and end up walking down the street laughing out loud.
