Some of the most notable Christmas decorations were at the grands magasins, Printemps and Galeries Lafayette, in downtown Paris. Though I've never been in the big city around the holidays to witness it, I think this is the Paris equivalent of the Macy's holiday windows in NYC. We first went to check it out on a Saturday evening at around 6:30 which was... a HUGE mistake! As we probably should have predicted, the place was packed with families and kids and Christmas shoppers trying to get a look at the windows. I think we gave up on the last few displays just because the place was so crowded. Paul took this opportunity, though, to bring me to the rooftop cafe at Printemps were we had a gorgeous view of Paris. The city was all lit up with regular lights, Christmas lights, and the Christmas Ferris Wheel at Concorde. It's fun to get tours from real-life Parisians. :)
Getting back to the window displays, we happened to be in the neighborhood a few days later and really lucked out. It was 10:00pm on a Wednesday, so the sidewalk was almost completely empty and we had a perfect view of all the windows. Here are some of our pictures...
The awnings over the sidewalks were covered with lights that somehow made it look as if it were snowing (I think there were flashing LED lights mixed in among the regular gold lights).
The displays at Printemps were created/sponsored by Dior. There were at least 4-5 different scenes (that moved) with these lovely ladies in pink and red dresses. I believe the ladies in the picture above were ice skating with hot air balloons and the ladies in the picture below were at the amusement park in their best ball gowns.
The Printemps advertisements around the city were also featuring one woman in a pink dress and one woman in a red dress during December... so once you had seen the window displays, every ad made you smile at the memory of the fanciful scenes. The scene pictured below featured what looks like a holiday ball.
As you can tell from the superbly fashionable Polar Bear's bag, the Galeries Lafayette windows were designed by Louis Vuiton.
The penguins were also styling....
Both of the grands magasins had little walkways right in front of the windows to give little kids the opportunity to get up close and see everything. And on the sidewalks of this area there were about a dozen different guys selling roasted chestnuts out of wire grocery carts. (They seemed to disappear quickly when the police came around, but the chestnuts smelled delicious).
Although they weren't as intricate as the grands magasins, even just the local "places" and neighborhood main roads in certain neighborhoods were decorated. The city in general had some extra sparkle, which definitely helps the Christmas spirit. This is in front of the Pantheon... it was like walking through a little Christmas forest in the middle of the city.
Well, I have lots more to say about Christmas in France (ummm the food? So much to say about how awesome that was) but I hope you enjoy all of these pictures for now. More to come about the holidays later.
And of course, a belated Joyeux Noel!
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