Christmas Cake, Christmas Pudding, Mince pies, Sherry, beers down the pub, Christmas Carols, Christmas Carol service at the church....I think that`s all. As for all the hype, overcrowded and over the top shops and Christmas Turkey? No way. Prefer the way it is here in France. It`s more like how it used to be in England many years ago. When my daughter comes over to stop she may bring some mince pies but otherwise I like trying all the different foods that are available around Christmas time. We also have our main meal Christmas Eve and open the presents before we go to bed. Much more civilised!! Almost forgot to add how the french really don`t understand why I have all these Christmas cards stuck all over my house in December!
Aw thanks! And you should ask in the foodies group about gravy and potatoes. Helen AH who runs the group is a faaaaantastic cook and James H makes the best gravy ever. Can't help you myself as I am absolutely useless in the kitchen :(
Well, I lived in Britain for 15 years, and every year I complained about the barrage of Christmas songs from early November on. Now of course I complain about the lack thereof in France. I've had to burn a CD with all the classics that used to get on my nerves : Last Christmas, Santa Baby, All I want for Christmas etc.
They just don't do Christmas properly here ! I miss the lot : mince pies, Christmas Pudding, Christmas cards, cranberry sauce ... And I'm French ! Don't get me wrong, I do prefer French food in general, it's huge variety in particular, but there's something about a traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings. I'd be happy to leave the foie gras and smoked salmon to New Year's Day, and have a British Christmas dinner. Unfortunately, maybe it's just down to genetics, but try as I may, I just cannot get the roast potatoes right. And I'm not too good with gravy either. Gratin dauphinois or tarte Tatin : not a problem, but roast potatoes still fail me !
Anyway, I definitely get more homesick at Christmas, and I bet a lot of you do too, so Have yourselves a Merry Little Christmas !
the only thing I miss is having for over 45 years to celebrate christmas on chistmas eve!! I hate eating late the grand children are all tired as we start the evening around 9pm but I have never been able to convince my french family that I would prefer a good lunch on the 25th.
I think that it is certain foods that I miss at Christmas, this is my 5th Christmas here. Last year we raised money for our children's school by cooking mince pies and flapjacks and snowflake biscuits, we made 250 euros, everyone loved them, we sold out of everything, mince pies and mincemeat were the most successful. I enjoy making mincemeat every year, although I have to ask friends to bring over suet for me. My husband is French and I find that his family couldn't care less about Christmas, and although I appreciate it not being so commercial, my children love Christmas as much as I do and when I'm with them for Christmas it really seems a non-Christmas. So I always prefer the Christmas which just the four of us. I do miss Christmas carols too!
I just miss Boxing Day even after 20 years here I can not get my head around it not being a bank holiday. We declare it a bank holiday anyway and refuse to stir.
Boxing day chez nous has always been the more relaxing day than Christmas. No one cooks there is a cold buffet put on the table at beakfast time, which stays there all day. If you want something to eat help yourself anytime of day if it's there have it, you want half the turkey? carry on as long as you don't waste it. It's what we have always done which ever family member has the Boxing Day get together.
We generaly spend Boxing day playing all the silly games that came as gifts or watching the new Dvd's or reading new books. We may even raise the energy for a walk at some point.
I think our idyll may be about to end hoever as No1 son is on a stage and is likley to have to work on the 26th Booooo
I'll go with that, they have certainly bred some of the best flat horses ever. Ironically, for my 20 odd Cambridge years I lived just outside Newmarket and miss those two courses (plus the NH practice course in the middle where Dessie used to train and even after his retirement - now that was a jumper!). Talk to racing people and quickly you'd find out that not only Dettori came to N'mkt but plenty of French young men and women for the racing apprenticeships amongst all else. Pompadour, nah... not nice. I agree on the PTP jockeys, they'd take all the purses here and upset the pros, better not develop on that.
So agree, Brian! French racing is woefully poor considering the calibre of horses they breed. My local track, Pompadour, has some scary riding. Jaques Ricou rode there once and looked like AP compared to the rest of then, who would have been outridden by most PTP jockeys I know!
Although on the Christmas note, Perigueux looks gorgeous with all the red carpets and ceilings of fairy lights strung between the old stone buildings, with a decorated tree in every doorway. Just stunning!
Our village in Cantal is covered in Christmas lights from early December; and there is a small estate where every house tries to outdo their neighbour and consequently its better than Blackpool illuminations and a local tourist sight! Whilst Christmas Day is normally more low -key here than in England we are endeavouring to instill more Christmas spirit in our very friendly neighbours by inviting them to a traditional British Christmas dinner with giant roast turkey and all the trimmings. I don't miss the hyper-activity of British Christmas shopping (usually starting back in September) at all !! I make up for it by visiting the local Christmas markets in mid-December, and this year going to the Alsace to see,what we are told, are the best markets anywhere.
Strangely, Kempton Park is one of the least alluring courses but the BD meeting has always had a certain atmosphere. I used to get down from Cambridge once the M25 made it easy, my childhood memories never really disappointed. It was my special bit of the Christmas holiday. Racing in France does not do it for me. Hunting reminds me that I also miss point-to-point with the minority equivalent here totally lacking any guts or balls (excuse the terminology). One day, perhaps, a stinking rich lover of point-to-point might just set something of that ilk up on their enormous property and, as long as I still have the physical strength and marbles, I'll be there. Boxing day and New Year's day meetings in East Anglia were also great occasions.
I miss absolutely nothing about Christmas in the UK. I've always disliked it. I don't like most of the food served, I am not religious, I hate commercialism, and I dislike seeing people behave like lemmings and all doing the same thing at the same time - giving presents, putting up decorations, and so on. Here in France, I also try to avoid most of the Christmas goings-on.
Yup - great way to blow away the cobwebs!! Though in Scotland it was always a worry that the weather would see the BD or NYD meets called off..........
Kempton or putting my point of view about protecting the dinner I wished to bag? Think both gave me a really nice buzz and on the racing one ask me on Derby day? I used to walk there, quicker than the bus from SW19 and getting on a train???? Not been since about 1968 and still miss it, now that is a buzz day!
I do not know if it was the best, however the one I had in Bangalore, India was hilarious. Some of the staff and perhaps some of the project children were Christians so they were entitled to celebrate. When something is celebrated in India everybody joins in. So there was the project director in her most red sari with a cotton wool beard on, in a cart pulled by a couple of borrowed buffalos. She came with her sack and handed out little parcels made of leaves with a grass bow on them and in which there were bracelets and little Indian sweets. The meal was a kind of chicken curry with a potato dish instead of rice, but the chapati nonetheless and masses of spinach and yoghourt. The dessert was something similar to galubjamun they called the Christmas pudding. Meal over we went out to a 'western' club where they were playing New Orleans type jazz which included some traditional Indian instruments. I heard one of the whackiest versions of White Christmas ever, all musicians having watched the film on video in order to learn it and only one person in the band having ever seen snow in the Himalayas knowing what they were actually singing about. We danced and messed around until somebody in the band shouted Happy New Year and they began to play Auld Lang Syne. When somebody told them it was premature they simply explained they would be playing at a private party on the actual event so were giving it to us now. Then somebody produced a number of bottles of real Scotch and the rest is amusing oblivion.
Long time ago, but never to be forgotten. They don't make Christmases like that here...