So as things turned out I would end up alone this Christmas in Paris. However, upon telling this to a friend of mine she decided there was no way I could be left alone on Christmas and invited me to her parents house in the suburbs of Paris to celebrate Christmas with them. So this Christmas I had the opportunity to see a French Christmas. There are obviously a lot of similiarities but there are quite a few differences as well. First off, Christmas eve is the big day and they tend to do nothing on Christmas day. So I was there at her house on Christmas eve for the big dinner with the family and then the gift opening after our extremely long french dinner. Apparently french christmas dinners revolve around salmon, foie gras, oysters, and a dessert that is like a sponge cake log with icing called a buche. For our main dish we had deer and dad you'd be so proud as I actually tried it and ate a whole serving. I also tried the foie gras believe it or not, but did not finish that. As for the escargot and oysters, I'm still just not there yet.

The dinner was great, we were 13 in all, we had several courses and it lasted for hours. Afterwards everyone exchanged presents and they were even nice enough to have given me two boxes of chocolate. The entire night didn't end until almost 4 a.m. and that even included the grandparents!

One other difference I noticed is that they don't do stockings here. Kind of sad in my opinion, but oh well.

Well below are a few of the pics I managed to take. Unfortunately I didn't get any big group ones or anything.

Here I am with my friend and hostess Elodie.


The grandparents.


Here is Elodie with her tree that her mother and her decorated. I think it's still a relatively new thing to actually decorate the tree here in France.


Here is the star of the night, Elodie's nephew Ryan who is 4. We all watched him open all of his presents and then proclaim after each one that Santa made a mistake because he didn't ask for that. Then he put everyone to work on putting all of his toys together while he played with what he could. A little too demanding but he was cute nonetheless.


And well that was my Christmas this year. Can't wait to see where I find myself next year.