Month: December 2020

In my last post, we talked about Christmas trees in Paris and in this one I’ll share with you some of the common Christmas traditions here that are quite different from those in the U.S.

Wrapping Supplies

There are no wide ribbons or big, ready-made bows here. Narrow “curling” ribbon and small “confetti” bows are the preferred wrapping options.

Mistletoe

You’d think the romantic French would be all over this, but mistletoe is hung here as a decoration that brings good luck. Not as a license for kissing.

Marché de Noel

Christmas markets are huge in France, although perhaps not exclusively a French Christmas tradition. There are a quite few towns and villages in France where artisan-produced gifts and local culinary delicacies, such as foie gras and confit de canard, are sold in the run-up to Christmas.

No Christmas Cards

Typically, the French do not send Christmas cards to friends and family. Instead, cards are sent to celebrate the New Year.

Santa Letters

Letters from French children to Pere Noël (Father Christmas) don’t just disappear into recycling bins in France. Since 1962, France has had a law that stipulates that any letter to Santa must be responded to, in the form of a postcard. The law has no doubt helped boost the myth of Father Christmas among French kids, although it’s doubtful that postal workers appreciate all the extra work.

Le Réveillon de Noël

The French hold a traditional Christmas Eve dinner, the Réveillon de Noël. At around midnight, French families eat a special meal to celebrate the very beginning of Christmas Day. Dishes might include roast turkey with chestnuts or roast goose, oysters, foie gras, lobster, venison, and cheeses. For dessert, a sponge cake log called a bûche de Noël (yule log) is normally eaten. In some parts of France, the meal is ended with 13 different desserts!

Shoes, Not Stockings

The stockings are not “hung by the chimney with care” here in France. In fact, “Christmas stockings” are not a thing at all. Instead, St. Nicholas beats Father Christmas to the punch by dropping in on the night of December 6^th and leaves gifts and treats in the shoes that French children leave by the fireplace or window. Father Christmas does his thing in the wee hours of the 25^th, as in the U.S., probably when everyone’s in a food coma from the Réveillon meal.

No Early Happy New Year

For Christmas, French people wish each other Joyeux Noël or Bonnes Fêtes. However, it’s important never to wish anyone a Bonne Année (Happy New Year) before midnight on New Year’s Eve, as this brings bad luck.

Fête des Rois

The official end of the Christmas season is the Fête des Rois (Three Kings’ Day or Epiphany to U.S. folks), and is celebrated here with the Galette des Rois, or king cake. It’s a flaky pastry, generally filled with almond cream, and hidden inside is a fève (a tiny baby figurine). Whoever gets the cake slice with the fève gets to be the King or Queen for the day. Most bakeries even sell the cakes with a paper crown! This is similar to the Mardi Gras cake tradition in the U.S.

However you celebrate Christmas, have a very merry one!

Our Advent candle says there are 12 days until Christmas, so I thought I’d tell you something about Christmas trees, sapin de noël or arbre de noël, here in Paris.

France has a rich Christmas tree history, going back to the early 1500s in the Alsace region, casting it as a symbol of hope and eternal life. During the France-Prussian war of 1870-71, refugees fleeing the conflict brought the tradition from Alsace to Paris and the rest of France. By the 1930s, most French households were putting up a Christmas tree.

Local governments put up large, well-decorated trees in public spaces:

Cities also tend to hang decorations across major streets and on buildings. The local artists get into it, too, including one who erected this inflatable, abstract Christmas tree here some years ago, only to have it recognized by the public as a sex toy:

Ahem. Three real tree species are generally available here: Spruce, Nordmann, and Noble Fir, along with that weird modern favorite, Flocked. They’re sold at grocery and hardware stores, city squares, and other outlets, beginning in late November. Faux trees are, of course, also available. One interesting thing to note is that real trees are often sold with a “base” – the half-log, shown below. A hole is drilled into the log and the tree trunk is jammed into it.

Which means the French do not water their trees! I wonder what is left of them by the end of December? We bought an American-style base with a water reservoir online but then had some difficulty getting our local vendor to remove the log base from the tree we wanted to buy. Eventually everything worked out, though, and I was soon carrying our tree, cocooned in netting for the trip, back to our place.

Christmas tree decorations in France were originally natural and editable items, such as fruit, candies, cakes, nuts, and paper flowers. Now they’re similar to the decorations found in the U.S.: LED lights, glass ornaments, cloth and wooden figures, garlands, and an angel or star at the top. Tinsel, though, has not caught on here.

We have a small apartment, so we scaled our tree accordingly and Marti has a great collection of decorations. Here’s our tree, ready for presents to be placed beneath it:

This is the first tree either of us has put up in quite a few years, so it’s been a lot of fun reminiscing and getting into the Christmas spirit. It’s amazing how indelible our childhood Yuletide memories are.

If you’re putting up a tree, have fun and enjoy the process! We found a soundtrack of classic Christmas tunes and a “cup of cheer” smoothed the process.