Christmas in France

Merry Christmas!!!!! So, yesterday and today were Christmas in France, which also means yesterday was my birthday. It was the most unique birthday of my life, and it was super weird to throw off my normal traditions, but it was great to celebrate this once in a lifetime opportunity with French family and friends. Every year back home, I have a breakfast brunch to celebrate my birthday, where I have friends come over and just chill out. In France, brunch doesn’t even exist, so that was tradition number one broken. It was really hard to get up, eat some bread and butter for breakfast, and then just sit around, when I am used to delicious fresh waffles and berries for my birthday. So, I started the day of my birthday pretty upset and wishing I could just be at home.

However, that sadness didn’t last long as the day moved on. For lunch, we went out for chinese food at an all-you-can-eat buffet. If I had known what was waiting for us for Christmas Eve dinner, I would have realized what a bad idea eating two full plates of chow mein and then a bowl of ice cream was. But, I didn’t, so I enjoyed the buffet, enjoyed spending time with Nicole and her host family. I was constantly trying to remind myself that even though it was my birthday, it was also Christmas Eve and I had to be ready to fully participate in everything planned for later in the day, even if it wasn’t going to be about me at all.

Me and Nicole at the Chinese restaurant for my birthday

 After lunch, we came home and I opened some of my birthday presents, which was lots of fun. They told me they had tried to get 16 presents since I turned 16, but they ran out of time. I got some great stuff, like a super warm fuzzy scarf, gloves, a cookbook with traditional northern recipes, mind teaser puzzles, and a tongue twister book. I also opened my Christmas present from the family: the trip to London.

Then, it was time for a skype call home to my family. That was tough for me, since it was my birthday and I haven’t talked to my family in a while. But, I had things to look forward to for the evening, so when it was time to say goodbye, I was fine. Then, Nicole and I packaged up all of the delicious cookies we had made the day before(eating some of them in the process.) We were giving them to the sisters of her host father and their families. We found baskets to put them in, and made little baggies with all the different types of cookies. We had to get creative toward the end when we didn’t have any more baskets, but at least we had enough cookies. In fact, we had more than enough. We currently have about 5 tupperware boxes of cookies in the house that are just for us. Oh, and you remember my awesome crab. Well, we decided we didn’t need to give him away, so I got to eat him this morning. And, he was quite yummy.

Nicole packaging our Christmas Cookie packages

 We finished up our packaging, and then it was time to open presents. Yep, I was scandalized, too. We opened presents at 4:30 pm on December 24th!!! No, we can’t do that. What happened to Christmas being December 25th?  But, not my family. If that’s how they do it here, I was going to go with flow. Everyone opened the presents at the same time and the tree was empty in about 10 minutes, rather than in 5 hours like Christmas back home. Then we started to get ready to leave for the evening activities. Nicole and I were ready early, so we played some billiards before leaving. Everyone was a bit frazzled but once we were all bundled up in coats and the gifts were in the car, the Christmas Eve mood really started to sink in. 

Of course, before we could open the Christmas presents, we had to take some pictures in front of the tree. Of course, the tree is just small enough that the only thing you see is the bow on top, which kind of looks like it is on Christelle's head. So, this is Nicole and her host family. Joseph, Louise(11,) Christelle, Theo(13), and Nicole. 

First, we went to Chirstelle’s mother’s house, where her brother, sister-in-law, and their little 10 month-old daughter were waiting for us. Nicole and I dropped off the first of our cookie baskets, and received some gifts of our own. We got matching knitted berets and truffles and lollypops. It was so sweet. And Christelle gave Gwenn(the 10 month year old) a toy that makes lots of noise and music. We had fun looking at her and watching her play with it.  After a few hours there, eating appetizers and chatting, it was time to go to the other side of the family for the rest of the night. 

Nicole and I with our matching bonnets

Christelle playing with Gwenn. Really, Gwenn is smiling almost all of the time, but every time you put a camera on her, she starts to frown. But just know, she really is a happy baby.

Caviar on toast, yum yum(not.) I couldn't even try it. I already had a stomach ache and just looking at it made it worse.

Frenchified pigs in a blanket. Instead of pancakes. they use croissants.

We went to a full family Christmas party at Joseph’s mother’s house. It was the grandparents, the 4 kids, their families, their kids, and the great aunt, plus me and Nicole. It made for 21 people and a very loud, happy house. Once everyone was there, Santa Clause came to distribute the presents. He reached into his sacks and pulled out gifts for all of the kids, making each of them give him a bisous before they could have their present. Even Nicole and I got gifts(Chocolate Santa Clauses and ornaments, plus matching bracelets.) Once the gifts were distributed, it was time to move to the dining room. We were all seated around the beautifully decorated table around 10:00 pm, when the meal started. It began with the “Fruits de mer”: oysters, crawdads, caviar, and gigantic sea snails. After the seafood came the salmon or ham on toast. Around midnight or 1:00 am, we started eating the main dish, deer and potatoes with mushrooms. Then came the cheese plate, full of many types of cheese and accompanied with great bread. A few hours later, we moved onto fruit and nuts. Around 3:30, the final course, tiramisu, was served. All throughout the meal, people got up, moved around, played games, and most of all:talked, a lot. We finally left around 4:30 am, well into Christmas. Nicole and I were almost asleep in our chairs , probably around 3:45 am, when Joseph told us that we were all going to the mass tomorrow at 9:00 am, so we were just not going to sleep at all. I was so tired that I believed him. But luckily, a few minutes later he told us that it had just been a joke and we would have the right to sleep in for Christmas morning.

Once we got back to the house, unloaded all of the gifts, and crashed into bed, Nicole and I stayed up for another hour, analyzing all of the event of the evening, and looking at all 71 of the pictures I took. We finally went to sleep around 5:30 am, and Nicole didn’t get up this morning until 2:00 pm. And now it’s christmas and we are spending the day chilling and catching up on rest, before starting all over with London and the New Year’s. More soon, and once again, “Merry Christmas.”

Santa Claus arriving to give out the gifts to all the kids.

All of the kids opening their presents from Santa Clause at the same time. Louise got the game Boggle, while you see one of her cousins opening an envelope of money.

Giant sea snails eaten for the first course. They smelled absolutely horrible, and I couldn't bear to look at them. One of Louise and Theo's uncles asked if I wanted to keep one of the shells as a souvenir, but I couldn't handle the smell for a few seconds, let alone imagine packing it into my suitcase.  

Around 3:00 am, Theo got out his poker set and adults and kids alike sat down to play some good old Texas hold-'um. If you look closely, you can see one of the uncles has a poker chip in his eye, so it clearly wasn't the most serious poker game ever.