So, French Christmas. Any different from anywhere else? Is Christmas in France the same mad shopping and boozing dash that is seems to be everywhere else?
From which you might think I’m a bit of a Scrouge. Which is not entirely true but I do get fed up when I start to see Christmas goods and adverts beginning in about September!
Which thankfully doesn’t happen in France. Although many things here are starting to seem more and more like their US or UK counterparts (Halloween, for example), Christmas in France doesn’t really get going until the first week of December when you start seeing street decorations.
In fact Christmas street lighting would appear to be a big thing here. Even our local village, population less than 250, makes the effort to light the place up. Quite nicely too.
Of course once they’ve made the effort to get them up, French Christmas decorations are there for the duration. When I was young we had to have all decorations down by 12th night for fear of bad luck, but not here. I can guarantee that these will be here well into February!
The French also have Christmas trees (sapin de noël), yule logs (bûche de noël) and Father Christmas (père noël). In fact is seems that you just take whatever it is and add noël and the French have a version of it. They don’t have panto though – which is not necessarily a bad thing in my book!
They don’t have Boxing Day either. Unless it’s a weekend, the majority of the French will be back to work. Although having the whole break between Christmas and New Year (the norm in England) happens for some, I think the majority of the French still just have Christmas Day and New Years Day. Even on those days you’ll likely find a local bread shop (boulangerie) open!
Although church attendance, like almost everywhere, is lower than it was, Christmas is still a big religious festival and many French will attend Midnight Mass. Just afterwards they start their main Christmas meal – le révillion (which means “the wake-up”). Yep, from just after midnight to well into the early hours our French friends will be eating and drinking copiously.
Like us they will probably have turkey (although it could be goose or capon) so I suppose the main difference is that their indigestion will start earlier!
Christmas afternoon, just like the rest of us, they will be having a nice long walk… or a nice long snooze. Happy Christmas! Joyeux noël!
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