This year I had the luxury of spending Christmas at home in California with my family. However, as I left France December 21st, I got a huge chunk of the French Christmas spirit. I thought it would be fun to catalogue a little bit of what it was like to be in Provence (the region in the south of France in which I live) for Christmas.
1)
Christmas lights and palm trees
My roommate Emma pointed out how funny it is (for her) to see palm trees strung up with Christmas lights. She's from Minnesota, so Christmas is a lot whiter for her normally, but for me it isn't that far off-base. Here are some pictures of the lights in Toulon and other cities around me. I particularly loved the Christmas lights in Sanary-sur-Mer that I saw with one of my teachers. They were really beautiful and all the boats (
les pointus) in the harbor were also strung up with lights.
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| Christmas market in Lyon at Place Carnot! |
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| Huge Christmas market in La Garde (which is near Toulon). |
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| Church in La Garde |
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| "Welcome to Winter" (roughly): Christmas market! |
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| Friends at the Market :) |
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| We also had the chance to ice skate the same day! |
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| Lights in Sanary-sur-Mer |
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| Sanary-sur-Mer continued |
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| Huge Christmas tree |
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| Mailbox for the letters to Santa |
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| Les pointus (traditional boats) |
2)
Les santons
Santons are special figurines that go in a nativity scene. Provence sells tons of extra hand-crafted terra cotta figurines special to Provence that depict traditional Provençal tradesman. There is
le tambourier (the town drummer),
le/la boulanger (ère) (the town baker),
la bouquetière (the lady who cuts bouquets),
le ravi (the man who is inexplicably happy), and many more. It is traditional to buy new ones each year and grow your home's nativity each year. There are hundreds so seeing a full nativity is rather astounding.
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| Can you see how many figures are in there?! |
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| Some santons for sale |
3)
Christmas markets
Christmas markets dot most of Europe, Germany being the reigning Christmas queen. France is no exception. If you look back to Travels with Maman Part 1, I went to Strasbourg at Christmastime and that was the epitome of Christmas (granted, it was part of Germany at one point). Lyon has two fun Christmas markets, which I got to visit at the beginning of December (look for a post about my weekend in Lyon, hopefully coming soon). Toulon and La Garde (a college town next to Toulon) both had Christmas markets. I also went to an Alsatian market that was very Christmasy a little earlier in the season. Toulon's was smaller than Lyon's but still cute with a mechanical Christmas tree that was actually a ride where you could sit in ornaments and go up and down the tree.
Le vin chaud (mulled wine),
le nougat (nougat),
le chocolat (chocolate),
le chocolat chaud (hot chocolate),
les bretzels (pretzels like those at Alsatian Christmas markets), and
les marrons chauds (roasted chestnuts) are some examples of the food present. There are also tons of little
chalets where you can buy purses, jewelry, dolls, and all sorts of Christmas gifts.
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| Some stalls at the market in Toulon |
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| The Christmas tree ride! |
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| Just casually posing with a polar bear at the Hyères Christmas market |
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| A blimp riding around in the Toulon market close to Christmas |
4)
Christmas dinner
I was lucky enough to be invited to multiple different Christmas dinners or lunches at my professor's houses and with friends. The French eat huge meals, basically feasts, for holidays. They have many courses and often, I remember my host family telling me, on Christmas Eve they have a huge feast that can go past midnight. I think each family does things differently, but they either have a big meal on Christmas Eve or Day, like we do in the U.S. Santa, however, delivers gifts differently. Children don't leave stockings up for Santa; instead, some families leave a pair of their shoes under the Christmas tree and then Santa puts the gifts for each person around his or her shoes. Unfortunately, I was enjoying a Californian Christmas so I didn't see how this would actually play out.
Anyways, here is an example of some of the meals I had.
Appetizer: toast or pieces of bread with foie gras or smoked salmon and the French equivalent of cream cheese with a sweet white wine called Saturne.
Main Course: A piece of meat with some form of potatoes. When I ate the school cafeteria Christmas lunch, we had stuffed chicken with mushroom cream sauce and potato dumplings with a piece of bread. At one of my teacher's house, we had a piece of beef with potatoes green beans wrapped in bacon. At another one, I had
les pommes de terres dauphinoises which is basically a potato casserole with eggs in it.
Cheese Course: You always need your cheese course. A bunch of different types of cheese with more bread! I had this really yummy one that was goat cheese covered in cranberries and other red fruit.
Dessert: Can't forget the
bûche de Noël or the yulelog, a sponge cake rolled like a log and filled with cream! As well as coffee or tea.
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| A bûche de Noël at my teacher's house giving me flashbacks to French class |
Dessert #2: If you're feeling really adventurous you finish with a Clementine or some chocolate truffles. Yes I actually ate meals this big and I felt like my stomach was going to pop it was so good!
All in all, foie gras and smoked salmon with the sweet wine are very traditional at Christmastime. Apparently those things used to only be for the rich, but in the last twenty years or so, they have become more affordable and almost everyone has them at Christmas now. I was so surprised that even at my school, the teachers were offered wine with their Christmas lunch! It was so nice to come together and spend our long hour and half lunch together (yes it is truly that long!). I love the French concern for mealtime. Even among assistants we take a long time to eat dinners together, over two hours sometimes. It is something I wish to take back to the U.S. with me.
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| I don't normally take pictures of presents, but one of my teacher's made me feel so special by treating me to some Christmas gifts!!! (Plus, l'Occitane is famous!) |
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| Inside was a book: A Year in Provence |
5)
Les treize desserts
The "thirteen desserts" are the traditional Christmas meal dessert in Provence. The yulelog is really from around Paris area I believe. In the South, however, there are not nearly as many cows as there are in the rest of France and so they are not known for their cheese, but they are also not known for desserts. Because (at a much older time) it was hard to get things like butter, eggs, etc, for desserts, the traditional dessert became the 13 desserts. 13 represents the 12 apostles plus Jesus. There are always thirteen desserts although they can be different in each family. Some examples are: dried fruits and nuts (figs, almonds, dates, walnuts, hazelnuts, dried plums), fresh fruit (pears, apples, oranges, etc),
calissons (specialty of Aix-en-Provence: like marzipan with a hint of melon flavoring),
pompes à l'huile (a brioche made with olive oil and
fleur d'oranger), nougat (black and white), and much more. I will put the wikipedia link if you want to see more.
Thirteen Desserts
6)
L'Épiphanie et les galettes des rois
Finally, now that I have returned, I have gotten to take part in a few
galettes des rois parties. The Epiphany, for those of you who, like me, don't know much about Catholic holidays, is January 6th. It represents the day that the three Kings found Jesus in the manger and presented him with their gifts of gold, myrrh, and frankincense. On this day and around it, people eat
la galette des rois which comes in a few forms. There is the frangipane galette which is a puff pastry in the shape of a tarte with almond paste inside. There is also a galette with apples inside, similar to an apple pie. There is also a Provençal version, which is brioche with sugar crystals and candied fruit on top. Inside the galettes there is a bean or a little figurine. The youngest person goes under the table and calls the names of the people waiting for their piece and another person hands them out accordingly so no one can cheat and choose their own piece. Whoever has the figurine in their piece is the
roi (king) or
reine (queen) of the party. They get to wear the hat but they have to buy the next galette for the next party. Then the next time they get together this person brings a galette. As you can see, this has the potential to turn into a pretty crazy cycle. However, it does pretty much end at the end of January.
La galette des rois (Scroll to "French King Cake")
I hope you enjoyed this little peek into French Christmas! Also, those of you who are French and/or have been to France, tell me if I am wrong or you've experienced something else. A very late Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all you who are reading :)
