Joyeux Noël

Joyeux Noël!  I realize it's a little belated, but it has been a busy couple of weeks in the U.S. of A. spending the holidays with family over here.  It has been wonderful, and as I write this post I am sitting in an airport wishing for a blizzard carrying 5 feet of snow that would shut down all air traffic for at least a week and keep us here.  (I'm not worried about being stuck at the airport... I know Mom and Dad would come rescue us!)  But alas, I fear said blizzard is not coming, especially given the rain outside.

Before heading over the ocean to spend Christmas with my side of the family, we did manage to catch a few "must-see" things in Paris around the holidays.  The most fun, I think, were the window displays at Printemps and Galeries Lafayette.  Last year the displays were pretty cool, and this year was just as fun.  Whereas last year I think that Printemps was my favorite, this year the Galeries LaFayette were pretty great.  I'll let you decide....

The Christmas displays at Galeries Lafayette were sponsored and designed by Swatch.  I have to say the clock gear windows were really cool.  You could see all the moving pieces and the hidden clock parts that made everything move.  It was a lot of fun.  Each window was a different scene of a related theme.

I would like to attend a Christmas dinner like this one.  It looked like all the little animals who were invited were having a good time.

This year checking out the Christmas displays was especially fun because we had a visitor with us!  Kim and Paul indulged me and smiled for the camera. 

The windows at Printemps were also cool.  They were sponsored by Prada.  To be honest, though, I really liked the Galeries Lafayette windows better.  A few of these ones had moving parts, but the others were mostly just big mannequins modeling the clothes.

Google made this one sparkle for me.  

These skiing Teddy Bears were pretty cute.

So that's one traditional French thing we did for the holidays.  We also did some serious shopping at the Christmas markets.  We visited the marché on the Champs-Elysées, at La Défense, and in front of Sacré-Cœur.  Although its neighborhood is the least charming, the market at La Défense was definitely the best.  We found a few Christmas presents there and in general were pretty pleased.  The one on the Champs-Elysées was by far the most touristy.  We had a hard time finding things there that were French at all.  We did, however, find the traditional Christmas Octopus!  I was unaware of that being a tradition, and I'm pretty sure that it is not.  But it made for a fun picture.

 So that is a little snippet of some French holiday traditions we enjoyed before our travels.  This year will be my first New Years in France, so I'm looking forward to that.  I'll let you know if anything is very different.

Happy Holidays!