Joyeuses Fêtes

The holidays here are magical! Christmas decorations went up the first week of November and stayed up through January 6th (Epiphany). The streets were lined with twinkling lights, Christmas trees are in every main circle and store fronts are decked out to the nines. 

While Christmas décor was popping up in November, we started planning our American Thanksgiving. As we were explaining the holiday to our European friends, they jumped all over the idea of Friendsgiving! Since noise and space are an issue for 7 plus families to get together here, our friends from Stockholm started planning a parent's night out Friendsgiving dinner.

Dinner was at a traditional French restaurant where the Chef agreed to make us all a turkey dinner. It was so much fun to share our holiday tradition with our new friends and yes, we all went around the table and said what we were thankful for.

As for Thanksgiving, we were able to secure a turkey from a butcher and one of my best college friends, who's a flight attendant, brought us all the thanksgiving spices, jimmy dean sausage for the stuffing, sour cream for my grandmother's snowy mash potatoes recipe and gravy packets! The kids were in school so we were able to cook all day and start watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade when they came home. It was a perfect day for our little family. 

After Thanksgiving, we fully embraced the Christmas spirit that was already in the air in Paris. We ordered a tree off amazon as our wood floors are not sealed and a real tree felt like too much of risk for the floors. The florists and super markets all had super tiny 4ft to 5 ft trees outside their shops and it was hard to pass them up! However, we did buy a real wreath and were able to have that familiar Christmas Tree pine smell in the apartment. 

We decorated the tree with ribbon and ornaments we bought from all the Christmas Markets we visited and a super cute Christmas pop up shop here in Paris while listening to our favorite Spotify Christmas playlist. We hung our stockings and decorated with all the Christmas decor we picked out at Masions du Monde (my new favorite Paris home store) and of course amazon. Colored lights were strung on our balcony and our dining table was dressed in green and cranberry linens accented with beautiful flowers from the florist down the street. Elfie (our elf on the shelf) made his appearance and the kids squealed with joy. Our apartment finally started to feel the warm and cozy Christmas spirit.  

The kids had their Christmas program at school and our hearts melted. Charlotte had been practicing her songs in French for weeks. Her French teacher was so proud of her as were we. Warren's class shared the cutest circle time with the parents and Ginny's class put on a play! Ginny was part of the "three little pigs" scene and did such a great job with her lines in French. They all had a class party after in which we made chocolate pretzel trees. Our white chocolate wasn't melting quiet right so we ended up with brown chocolate Christmas trees. While the color wasn't the same as the Pinterest idea we found, the taste was on point and everyone loved them! We could not be prouder of our littles! 

The two-week Christmas break was upon us and the kids were questioning every detail about Christmas. How will Santa find us? How will Santa get in the apartment since we don't have a fireplace? How will Elfie get home if Santa doesn't find us? Luckily, Christmas magic is all they needed to hear. We visited the famous Galleries Layfette to walk the window decorations and view the Santa and Christmas Tree hanging from the roof. We embraced the French Christmas traditions which are mainly desserts and oh my goodness the panettone and Bûche de Nöel are amazing. 

Christmas Eve, we made gingerbread cookies and had a blast decorating them for Santa. We attended mass at The American Church in Paris (thought we were at the American Cathedral in Paris, my mistake) and the children's service was perfect for the kids. The strollers lined up inside the doors of the courtyard like cars in a parking lot. Everyone received a goodie bag with birthday glasses and the service was very interactive for the children. Children of all ages were dressed up as people, angels, and animals from the gospel. They read the gospel and then all the children at the service answered questions during the sermon. After the service, everyone celebrated with signing a birthday card for Jesus and enjoying some cake! 

We came home to find Elfie in the Christmas tree and all the American ingredients (Betty Crocker cake mix & icing) to make Noni's birthday cake for Jesus. Brian started prepping for our mini-Feast of the Seven Fishes. Charlotte helped cook and Ginny joined in to plate the dishes. Appetizers were smoked salmon bellini's and our favorite smoked trout dip. The first course was Cod with cannellini soup and we ended with our staple clams and mussels' pasta. We ended the night laying out our sacs, leaving cookies for Santa and saying our goodbyes to Elfie while watching the most beautiful sunset. 

Christmas morning, we woke up to our sacs and stockings filled, presents under the tree from our cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents and a note from Elfie. We opened gifts, sipped coffee from our favorite Christmas market mugs and then we made the most amazing bread pudding with the brioche bread from the boulangerie down the street. Christmas day was filled with facetime calls to our family and watching our favorite Christmas movies. Later in the day, the girls helped bake the birthday cake and decorate it with sugared rosemary, shaved coconut, and cranberries. Brian made another amazing meal that evening, we then sang happy birthday to Jesus and ate alot of cake!

To close out the Christmas season, our French grandmother brought us a Galette des Rois (the original king cake) for Epiphany. It is a delicious almond cream puff pastry cake. French tradition is the youngest in the room hides under the table and grabs a guest's leg who is them served a piece of the cake. A small charm (not baby) is hidden in the cake and whoever receives the charm wears a paper crown the rest of the day! The boulangeries have different themes. Our boulangerie had a Star Wars theme while the galette des rois our French grandmother brought us had an old school car theme. Brian found the charm in his slice but all three kids wore the crown's that day. It was the perfect ending to the Christmas season.  

It was the most wonderful Christmas season. The children saw the Eiffel Tower sparkle for the first time while we attempted to take Christmas card pictures. Paris light's up during Christmas and we are so thankful we were able to celebrate Christmas in Paris.