Christmas:
On my prior blog posting I wrote about some
of the Christmas “traditions” throughout France. At the time I posted that blog
I had not yet experienced Christmas myself, so now I’m writing about my observations
of Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
I imagine you noticed when reading about the
French “traditions” that there were many references to Christmas Eve. I realize
that a lot of people in America celebrate on Christmas Eve (kids not being able
to wait to open their presents, their own family traditions or having two sets
of families to celebrate with – one on Christmas Eve and the other on Christmas
Day) so even having read about the French “traditions” I thought that here in
France would be similar – boy was I wrong! All celebrations are on Christmas
Eve in France – Christmas Day means nothing to the French people. Which I find
really weird, since Christmas is about Christ’s birth and He wasn’t born on ‘Eve’
but on ‘Day’ … yes, I know – Christmas is just symbolism, but hopefully you get
the gist of what I’m trying to convey here.
So, I decided to go to a Christmas Eve
service. A couple of days before I had met and talked to one of my neighbors
(woohoo, I met a neighbor, Natalie – she lives on the first floor (étage 1 – remember, in the US that would
be the second floor) with her daughter Victoria, and she told me that the
couple who had lived in my apartment before me, Mr. and Mrs. Smith (not Brad
and Angelina she stressed) worked at The American Church in Paris and that the
services there are in English. I decided I’d check out the ACP as it is only
about a 20 – 25 minute walk from my apartment. It’s on the quai d’Orsay, about 2 or 3 blocks from la tour Eiffel in the 7ème arrondissement. They were holding three services at 1:30pm
(13h30), 7:30pm (19h30), and 10:00pm (22h00) with a 30 minute prelude of
classical music, including Mozart, Bach, and Vivaldi (one of my favorites)
prior to each service. I went to the 22h00 service.
I left my apartment just before 21h00
(9:00pm) so that I could watch the lights flash on la tour Eiffel as I walked across the Champs de Mars (they flash on the hour, for 5 minutes). It doesn’t matter how many times I
walk by la tour Eiffel I
am always awestruck when I see it. But this stroll was so very different than anything
I’ve ever experienced. During the first 10 minutes or so of my walk I did
not see another person or car drive by. It was absolutely eerie. Since I
don’t watch these kind of movies, I can’t give you a movie name as a reference –
but you know those movies that usually star actors like Will Smith or Tom
Cruise where some disaster has happened on earth and the main character finds
that they are the only human left alive? That is what it felt like to me. (I
had actually seen more people out and about on the day after the terrorist
attacks here in Paris than I saw on Christmas Eve night). For a city that has
millions of people living in it – to be able to walk through the streets and
parks and not see a single person or moving vehicle I felt like I was the only
person alive. That was when I realized that Christmas Eve is the day of
celebration for families – the live ‘tradition’ of the French people, done the
same way for centuries and centuries. When I left the church service at about
23h15 (11:15pm) there were a few more people out but still not many, it seemed
like they were on their way home from their earlier family gatherings.
The American Church in Paris is the first
American church established outside the United States in 1814. The current
building was dedicated in 1931, and it is a small church, in 15th
century Gothic style. It seats only 700 people. It is an interdenominational
church serving English speaking people from different countries and
denominational backgrounds. The Gothic architecture is very simplistic – it is
not an ornate church by any means, but has absolutely beautiful “clean lines”.
It also has a large pipe organ, which was played during the service. Below is a
photograph of the pipe organ.
On Christmas Day I left my apartment at
about 07h00 (7:00am) because I was on kitty feeding duty while her parents were
out of town. As I was walking on La
Motte-Picquet the first thing I saw was a city worker sweeping the gutters.
This worker would be responsible for emptying the city trash cans along the
sidewalks. I was somewhat dumb-founded, thinking “what in the heck is he doing
emptying trash cans on Christmas Day – can’t they just leave them until
tomorrow?” As I continued along my way I saw another city worker, then a city
truck driving around and I also saw a gardienne
(think of a New York City building superintendent) mopping the entry way to her
apartment building. On my walk back home at about 08h00 (8:00am) I saw a boulangerie open, Starbucks was open,
the newspaper kiosk was open (no newspapers delivered to your door here – you have
to go to the newspaper stand to buy it each day), and a delivery being made to
the Franprix (mini-market grocery
store). Seeing all of this reinforced to me that it is Christmas Eve, not
Christmas Day, that is celebrated in France.
I had a great Christmas Day because I really
wasn’t alone – physically yes, but I ended up video talking to 7 different sets
of people via Skype, Face Time or Facebook Messenger so it didn’t seem like I
was so far away from everybody. A little bit of loneliness did creep in when it
came to my “Christmas Dinner” so I made up for that by eating comfort food – I had
macaroni and cheese, ham, and chocolate cake with buttercream frosting for
dessert … an all American meal!
New
Year’s Eve:
I’m not really a ‘party person’, those days
are long in the past. I cannot remember the last time I was awake for the
midnight hour to celebrate the passing of one year into the next. But, here I
am in a different country wanting to learn about their customs – so I decided I
wanted to experience New Year’s Eve in Paris.
The first thing I learned is that
traditionally a big public celebration is not custom. I had envisioned
plentiful fireworks at la tour Eiffel but
learned that it’s only been the last few years that Paris has had a large public
celebration (last year 650,000 people attended) which takes place at the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Élysées. Secondly, because of the November terrorist
attacks the government wasn’t sure if they were going to allow any type of
public celebration and only decided a couple of weeks before that they would
allow the public celebration but there would be no fireworks – they didn’t want
the noise to be misconstrued as guns being fired. And thirdly, the few weeks
leading up to December 31st there were plenty of newspaper articles from
Intelligence Sources about ‘chatter heard’ that a DAESH attack on New Year’s
Eve at ‘iconic’ locations was a possibility in a number of countries, including
France. All these put a damper on my enthusiasm of experiencing New Year’s Eve
in Paris.
I’ve said in blog postings before that I’m
not going to allow DAESH to impact how I live my life – I will not let them
win, but for some reason in this instance I did. I’m ashamed of myself and can
rationalize it away saying that I made plans to spend New Year’s Eve with
friends instead – but the bottom line is that with the Intelligence reports
about a possible attack I just didn’t feel comfortable being in the crowd on
the Champs Élysées. Part of my
reasoning for not going to the public celebration was that I knew there would
be no vehicle traffic as they were shutting down the Champs Élysées and what frightened me the most was the “unknown” ….
With all those people walking about there could easily (or so I thought) be
suicide bombers walking amongst them. I was more comfortable with the thought
that the chances of being hit by gun fire from a moving vehicle was pretty low,
but not comfortable at all of wondering if the person next to me, or in front
of me, or behind me was wearing a suicide vest under their winter jacket. So
basically, I chickened out. And I now regret it as I’ve since learned that
there were 11,000 police and military personnel along the Champs Élysées that night and every bag and purse was searched,
which would also include opening your jacket for a visual check, before being
allowed into the area. It was reported it was a smaller crowd this year, only
600,000 people.
So, I went to my friends’ apartment to await
2016. They live about an 8 minute walk from my apartment. They provided the
food and champagne and I brought the wine and dessert. I got there around 20h30
(8:30pm) and shortly thereafter we started our grazing through the night. The
French serve meals in multiple courses. We had talked about just having cheese
but it morphed into much more.
We started off with saucisson (think of hard salami), very thinly sliced dried beef (I
can’t remember what it’s called), white onions (like used in alcohol drinks), gherkins,
green olives, and cheese crackers – this was served with the white wine. Next
was ½ lobster each. They ate theirs with the French version of mayonnaise
(which is supposed to be really, really good – but I have a huge aversion to
mayonnaise) and I had melted butter. Then the cheese course was served; we had
three types that had been bought at one of the Christmas Markets and was a
regional cheese (none of us can remember which region). One was a truffle
cheese (OMG, it was delicious and should be at 149 Euros per kilo), a red (in
color) cheese that had tomato and basil in it, a blue (in color, not the type)
cheese that had spices in it that none of us could remember, and an endive
salad with hard boiled eggs - served with the red wine. We finished our
gastronomical feast with various types of petit
four tarts that I had picked up at my local boulangerie, fresh cherries and oranges – served of course with the
champagne. Below is a picture of the desserts.
I left to walk home after the midnight hour.
I did learn that in France there are no laws for public intoxication so I didn’t
have to worry if I wobbled while I walked since we did drink the two bottles of
wine and the bottle of champagne. I know I sound like a lush – I promise I’m
not … what is so totally weird to me is that for years before moving here I had
pretty much stopped drinking any alcohol, no reason why I just didn’t want to
any longer – maybe at most 2 or 3 times a year. Here, I don’t drink every day
(the perception is that French people drink wine with every meal – and they DO)
but when I do have wine it doesn’t feel the same, I don’t feel fuzzy. French
wine is very, very, very good!!!
Extra
Bonus:
I am in love. He is just an adorable boy.
I don’t even know his name. He lives at the café
on the corner of my block (I always see him in the café, I don’t know if the
owners live in the apartment above it or not). The café opens at 11h00
(11:00am) and if I happen to walk by between 10h00 and 10h30 (10:00am and
10:30am) I can sometimes find him outside on the sidewalk. The other day I
cracked up because somebody was walking their large dog and my little love had
his back arched and the hair standing straight up – I started laughing and
called him over to me where I pet and pet him until he settled down. He is so
friendly and recognizes me. When I see him inside the café, either before it
opens or after it’s closed, I tap on the window and he comes to the window
where I “pet” him through the window – like scratch his head. He moves his body
against the window as if he can actually feel my fingers in his fur.
In this picture, it was taken just the other
morning – early, he was sitting in the window seat and when he saw me he
started standing up and stretching against the window. In the window reflection
you can see me taking the picture and the bottles in the bar of the café across
the street.
I am in love. He is just an adorable boy. I
don’t even know his name.
Jusqu'à
la prochaine fois
