Similarities include: Santa (Père Noël), decorating Christmas trees, opening presents on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve...
-The main dish on Christmas day might be turkey, but it may very well be roasted chapon (a castrated chicken which allows it to grow more muscle and fat than the ordinary chicken). And always foie gras (duck or goose liver that everyone claims is delicious!).
-They drink champagne, but haven't heard of eggnog.
-Instead of Christmas cookies, they have bûche de noël. We call it the "yule log" and they can look like this:
-As in the U.S., Christmas lights vary by neighborhood. Lyon has une Fête des lumières, which draws crowds of spectators. While there are city lights in Toulouse, I haven't seen any on private residences, though they tell me that's more of a countryside tradition.
- Instead of stockings on the fireplace, there are shoes left under the tree.
- Some carols have trickled over--- jingle bells was playing over the school loudspeaker in between classes--- but not to a great extent. Definitely no radio stations playing only Christmas songs.
That's a summary of my classes today; the students were particularly uncooperative and I'm glad to be rid of them for three weeks. More French Christmas insight in the days to come, I'm sure!
That yule log really looks like a log. You should start the log as a family Christmas tradition when you return. After all, logs and trees are important in our family.
ReplyDelete(Bobby Flay did a yule log throw down show.)