First French Christmas

Being unable to re-enter the French territory if I left it due to visa complications, I celebrated Christmas this year in France, with the Frenchboyfriend and his family; my very first French Noël.


Christmas in Paris.
French Christmas is all about family and food, a lot of food, with a little bit of Père Noël thrown in.

The celebrations started on Christmas Eve, with a family dinner lasting from 7pm till 2:30am, with about an hour of that dedicated to opening gifts. The rest? Drinking delicious champagne and wine, and eating several courses, from appetizers to a cheese course, and of course way too many desserts to count.

I learned that in the South it is traditional to have 13 desserts. We didn’t have quite thirteen, but we did have homemade chocolate covered clementines, marzipan fruits, bugnes, gingerbread cake, and bûche de noël, to name a few.


Christmas decorations in a small skiing village next to Frenchboyfriend's hometown.
In between the cheese coarse and the dessert coarse, who to my wandering eyes should appear but none other than the not-very-elusive Père Noël!

France’s equivalent to Santa Claus actually shows up while the children are awake to bring them gifts. While there weren’t any children present, Frenchboyfriend’s grandpa still dressed up as Père Noël and added a bit of Christmas magic to the evening.

French children also don’t need to hang their stockings by the chimney with care, as the French get their gifts directly from the big guy and don’t have stockings at all.

This probably explains why Frenchboyfriend’s family kept referring to all the gifts under the tree as being from Père Noël. There didn’t seem to be the same distinction between family gifts vs. Santa gifts that I have in my family.

Christmas day we underwent the eating endeavor again, only this time with the dad’s side of the family.

But meals didn’t stop there! We continued to have lovely dinners with various other members of the family and good family friends for the next several days. And then what else do you do for New Year’s Eve but eat a big meal?

DVDs

I was lucky enough to get to go back home to California for two weeks during the winter holidays.


Christmas à la plage.
I made sure to only put really light weight objects on my x-mas wish list and asked my parents to not gift me anything too heavy, as I was hoping to use the return flight as an opportunity to bring more of my belongings to France.

As luck would have it, the gifts that I brought to CA with me far outweighed the gifts I received (why are wine bottles so freaking heavy?), and left me with some space to bring back beloved objects that up till now were residing in my parents’ garage.

I brought back some old journals, some clothes, my Ewok stuffed animal, and a ridiculous amount of DVDs.

Since the first time I moved to France, I’ve been treating my parents’ house like a Blockbuster. I have a CD case holder that I fill up with DVDs that I then I change out every time I go home.


My Ewok, books, and movie rental hardware.
This year, however, I got some DVDs for Christmas that I didn’t necessarily want to take up space in my special DVD trading case; I decided to take my French film DVDs back to France to share them with the French boyfriend; and I also wanted to borrow my Dad’s DVDs of the original Star Wars films as it’d been too long since I’d seen them and scandalously, the French boyfriend hasn’t seem them since he was a child.

All in all, I brought back a lot of DVDs and left some other treasured objects behind.

Now it’s important to note that Europe and North America are in different zones for DVDs. This means that a DVD made for viewing in America is considered a “zone 1” DVD, and can only be played by North American “zone 1” DVD players*. France, along with the rest of Europe, is in “zone 2.”

This has never been a problem as my computer is from America, and therefore plays zone 1 DVDs. For French DVDs, we use French boyfriend's French computer. Everything works out dandily.

Except that as soon as I got back to France, my laptop’s DVD drive stopped working.

So much for that.

*Apparently DVD players exist now-a-days that can play both zones, but unemployed me is a little too tight on money to purchase one. Also, I’m not sure I believe them.

Noël Blanc

FBF played for me this French remake of the American classic, White Christmas, and I can't get enough.


Coeur de Priate - Noël Blanc

He said, "I think it sounds really American with all the trumpets."

I had no idea that trumpets were America, but there you have it.

I think it sounds really French as she is singing in français. Plus she's managed to make Christmas a lot sexier. I love how the French language can do that with just about anything.

Regardless of whether it's more French or more American, it's a great little tune to put you in the holiday spirit.

Joyeaux Noël!

Bruges Christmas Market

After reading Lonely Planet’s article about 5 great cities for Christmas markets and seeing Bruges listed as #3, FBF and I decided to pay the city a visit in December.

Wrapped in scarves and warm winter coats, we spent a lovely evening in the medieval city turned Christmas village.

The actual marché (market) part was a bit disappointing. There was only one small square with cabins selling objects, where there were also carnival type rides (bumper cars for Christmas?), and then there was the central square where most of the cabins were selling only food and drink.

The central square also hosted an ice skating rink with a beautiful view of the city’s bell tower. FBF doesn’t like ice-skating, so instead we spent our evening wandering the city’s many charming streets.

All the already beautiful buildings became a winter wonderland transformed by garlands, lights, and Christmas trees. It was magical.


A Christmas tree at la place Burg.


Some buildings with Christmas decorations at La Grand Place.


View of the canal and the bell tower, plus lovely Christmas lights.

To top it all off, we found a small hidden courtyard decorated with giant light up swans, Bruges' symbol.


Me kissing the light-up swan.

We had a lovely dinner in the city, and after a last look at all the Christmas splendor we headed back to Lille.

I don't think that it should be #3 for the market, but instead for a romantic place to soak up the spirit of Christmas, as I was swept off my feet by the magical decorations of an already beautiful city.

Un Souvenir Du Grand Roue

It's december, which means that the Marché de Nöel is in full swing, the city is sparkling in beautiful lights, les sapins de nöel (Christmas trees) are abundant, and I'm drinking christmas-flavored Belgian beer.

While I have already visited the Marché de Nöel to stuff my face with delicious vanilla gauffres (waffles), drink vin chaud (hot spiced wine), and look at all the goods for sale in the cabins, I am not tempted by the Ferris wheel. I learned my lesson last year.

(originally posted December 22, 2010 here)
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FBF and I thought it would be ever so romantic for us to ride le grand roue (the giant Ferris wheel) at the Marché de Nöel. La Soeur told us that the view from the top is beautiful, but extremely cold. We dressed accordingly.


Le Grand Roue
We had the choice between four little carriages, which were unlike any Ferris wheel seating area I have ever seen. Instead of being for two people, it could've held 6 adults, and instead of facing forward, it was a circle with a pole in the middle holding it up to the wheel.

Because this was supposed to be a romantic date, FBF and I sat on the same side.

This was a mistake. As soon as we were sky-bound, the carriage started leaning dangerously due to our combined weight on just one side.

This was doubly dangerous as there was not any protective fencing. It would not have been hard to tumble out. To make matters worse, there was no safety restraint of any kind. We were not buckled in.

FBF and I, while enjoying the view, were not enjoying a romantic, quiet moment alone in the sky, because j'avais peur (I was scared). Instead of holding on to my boyfriend, I had my arms wrapped around the middle pole, trying desperately not to fall off.

Cadeaux de Noël

This Christmas was my first Christmas with FBF, and although we spent the actual day apart (me in CA and him in le Nord), I still got a lesson in French dating.

While trying to find a place to live, I was hébergé (housed, home-stay style) chez FBF’s Maman (mommy). As a thank you, I decided to bring her back some Christmas presents from my trip to California.

My gifts were not the thank you I had intended. La Maman, FBF told me, had bought me Christmas presents as well. I was now going to have to do a gift exchange.

Before now, I had never bought nor received a gift of any kind from the parents of a significant other. My gift was simply a thank you present disguised as a Christmas gift. Her present, on the other hand, was simply a Christmas present.

La Maman, as it turned out, was only the beginning. Soon thereafter, FBF informed me that his sister also wanted to buy me a Christmas present.

A few days later, I found out that FBF’s cousin, whom I’ve met a maximum of four times, also bought me a Christmas present.

Last, but not least, and completely unannounced, FBF’s brother and sister-in-law, whom I’ve never met, also bought me Christmas presents.

Having not yet even made the one-year mark with FBF, this whole gift giving with the famille (family) thing made Christmas seem a little bit more serious than I had anticipated. Then I remembered that the French don’t date, they relationship.

I should have seen this coming, what with kissing a guy once making him your boyfriend, and being introduced to family members after only three weeks of dating, naturally I would be receiving Christmas gifts from family members inconnues (unknown).

Le Marché de Noël de Lille

Although I am home for Christmas this year, I still wanted a French Christmas experience. FBF and I decided to go on a date to the Marché de Noël. While this is definitely not something you can find in America, I’m not sure how authentically French this experience is for a variety of reasons.

The first reason being that while I was in Amsterdam, my friends and I went to “Winterland,” which was basically like a Dutch Marché de Noël. I have also seen Marchés de Noël in Belgium, but while this is basically an extension of France, I feel like it counts less in ruining the Frenchness of the whole experience.


Amsterdam's Winterland
The second one being that FBF hasn’t been to the Marché de Noël, in Lille or otherwise, since he was like 8. And even then, he told me that they didn’t really do the Marché like we did, meaning they didn’t look at all the booths, eat all the food, and experience the attractions. This leads me to believe that he'd actually never been before, as what else is there to do at the Marché de Noël except these things?


Le Marché de Noël de Lille
There were all kinds of booths, from Santa Hats and ornaments to metal robot sculptures and puzzle games (none of which FBF and I could figure out, including the ones intended for 8 year olds), but I saved my money for all things edible.

We sampled all sorts of bad for you delicious Christmas foods. I had a gauffre, which is like a Belgian waffle, except that they originate from le nord. Then FBF and I shared 13 croustillons, which are basically like fried doughnut holes but better and come from the Netherlands. To help us swallow all this fried food down, we partook in another French Christmas tradition, vin chaud.


Le Vin Chaud.
Vin chaud is not my favorite drink on the planet, and if it wasn’t part of the Christmas theme, I don’t think I would ever drink it. However, there is something magical about having a hot glass of spiced wine in your gloved hands while walking around admiring the general holiday splendor that lets you know it really is Christmas time.

To finish off this feeding frenzy, FBF and I headed over to the booth called Soupe à la Ferme (Soup from the Farm). I had an amazing cup of zucchini soup, complete with melted cheese on top and some sort of herb bread. FBF had carrot soup, which while I was not a fan, he enjoyed immensely.

After stuffing our faces, we thought it would be ever so romantic for us to ride le grand roue (the giant Ferris wheel). We were told from La Soeur that the view from the top is beautiful, but extremely cold. We dressed accordingly.


Le Grand Roue
So we pay, get weird token things, and wait in line for a couple of minutes before it’s our turn. The man takes our tokens, and let’s us choose one of four little carriages. Now this is unlike any Ferris wheel seating area I have ever seen. Instead of being for two people, it could hold 6 adults, and instead of facing forward, it was a circle with a pole in the middle holding it up to the wheel.

Because this was supposed to be a romantic date, FBF and I sat on the same side, of course. This was a mistake. As soon as we were sky-bound, the carriage started leaning dangerously due to our combined weight on just one side. This was doubly dangerous as there was not really any protective fencing, and it would not have been hard to tumble out. To make matters worse, there was no safety restraint of any kind. We were not buckled in.

FBF and I, while enjoying the view, were not enjoying a romantic, quite moment alone in the sky, because j'avais peur (I was scared). Instead of holding on to my boyfriend, I had my arms wrapped around the middle pole, trying desperately not to fall off.

On about our third turn around the wheel, I realized that something this sketchy could only happen in France. We weren’t even required to sign release forms in order to ride on this obvious death trap.

While I greatly enjoyed the Marché de Noël overall, I’m not so sure I’ll be riding le grand roue next Christmas.