French Holidays (Part II)

While the lights and decorations in Paris at Christmas were lovely, I would be remiss if that were all I shared with you about my first holiday season in France.  So here is a little more about my first French Christmas…

Coming from a very large and very tight-knit family, I was a bit nervous that celebrating Christmas away from them for the first time would make me very homesick.  In Syracuse, we always celebrate with extended family and I’ve always really enjoyed the holiday traditions.  Would the holiday be the same without them?  Would it feel like Christmas?

I guess love of a close-knit family is a commonality that brought Paul and I together, because Christmas with his family was very similar to Christmas with mine.  If I had to sum it up in two words, I submit two possibilities.  “Family and Food,” or “Cousins and Cuisine.”  Since there were a lot of aunts and uncles around, I think I will go with the first to be inclusive.  Either way, I was so pleased to find myself surrounded by a big group of people who loved each other and were excited to be together for the holiday.  Everyone made a lot of noise and had a lot of fun!

So, to get more specific, there were about 22 of us all together for Christmas Eve dinner, which was hosted by Paul’s maternal grandmother.  We put together one looong table in the middle of the living room where everyone sat together, roughly grouped together by age.  (As one of the younger cousins in my family, it was REALLY cool to be counted in with the adults.  All younger cousins should try this at least once!).  And, as you may have guessed by my two submitted phrases, there was a lot of food to be had. 

For Christmas Eve, we enjoyed foie gras and champagne before/while we opened Christmas presents.  (I’m told presents are usually opened on the 25^th, but more cousins were present on the 24^th this year, which explains the switch-up).  This was quite the experience.  In the Italian side of my family, the custom is generally to have one representative from each family hand out the presents to all the other cousins.  From there, we hang onto them all for a couple minutes while everyone gets settled, then we watch each other open them/open them together, trying to see what everyone gets while you open your own.  It eventually descends into chaos, but it’s usually orderly when we begin.

Well, I learned that in France there is not generally a “From” tag.  Also, all the presents are placed under the tree earlier in the day as people arrive.  When we get the go-ahead to open them, you either scurry toward the tree to help distribute presents or hang back (as I did, as a nervous newbie) and in a flurry of activity you end up with presents in your hand.  Everyone opens the presents as they receive them, still in the midst of the finding/distributing stage.  As is universally true of opening presents, this is lots of fun.  However, it is slightly confusing because unless someone makes a comment when you open a present, you have no idea who gave you what.  I kind of hung around the living room for a few extra minutes to chat with the Aunts (the presumed shoppers) to find out who gave which presents!  In short, it’s a lot of fun and there is a lot of excitement and energy in the atmosphere. 

After opening presents we ate dinner, as I mentioned before, at a long banquet table in the living room. Dinner itself was lovely.  It was a traditional French meal, orange duck, or canard a l’orange.  We sang Christmas carols at the table, and each attendant from another country (Along with the French, there was also a cousin from Columbia, a fiancé from Australia, and me) sang one of his or her traditional numbers.  Luckily, we all picked familiar ones and the whole group joined in, so nobody really had to sing alone.  It was really cool to hear different traditional songs and familiar songs in a couple languages.  After cleaning up from dinner we had an impromptu dance party (which I’m told is not traditional) that was captured on video camera before everyone headed off to bed.

Christmas day was also cool.  A few of us went to Christmas mass at the Royal Chapel. The Countess of Paris was there (apparently she would be an heir to the French throne if they opted to bring back the monarchy) so the mass was very formal and included a lot of Latin.  It was also very long.  We ducked out after Communion, at which point mass had lasted one hour and 25 minutes.  The chapel was absolutely beautiful, situated at the top of a hill so it received a lot of light that poured in through the stained glass windows and illuminated all the marble and artwork in the chapel itself.  However, being a bit older, there is no heating system in the building.  We were a little chilly (okay, we were freezing) so I absolutely recommend paying a visit to this chapel… during the summer.  I’m looking forward to going back to check it out when things warm up!

We shared the main meal on Christmas Day with the other half of Paul’s family.  His paternal Grandmother hosted her children and grandchildren for lunch.  We had some more foie gras and champagne (I really like foie gras and champagne. Vive les French holidays!), followed by some delicious roast beef and, of course, the cheese course and dessert.  And then the food coma.  Naturally.  This was a more intimate gathering of about 11 people, so it was slightly less boisterous than Christmas Eve, but just as warm and welcoming as the festivities the evening before.

In order to celebrate Christmas with Paul’s great aunt, we actually had ANOTHER Christmas dinner on December 26^th in Paris.  It was a marathon holiday and I liked it.  We enjoyed the same general atmosphere – lots of people (though the younger cousins were sent to McDonalds because Parisian apartments aren’t quite big enough for whole-family dinners), lots of food, and a really lovely time.  I think the adult cuisine was remarkable, though, so will give a brief run-down of the menu.  We enjoyed chevreuil, which is a type of dear that doesn’t exist in the US, and cepes, a type of mushroom that Paul’s grandparents hunted earlier in the fall and saved for the special occasion.  We also had a buche for dessert, which literally translates to “log.”  It’s a type of cake in the shape of a log and is only available around Christmas.

So that is the gist of my first Christmas in France.  I still got a little homesick when I called my parents, but I really felt like a part of the family and a part of the celebration.  And while I missed my own traditions, it was really special to witness and participate in someone else’s.  In the end, it made me feel truly blessed to be a part of two families.