A French Christmas

Here, in France, Christmas is much more relaxed than it is in England. Christmas things don't appear in the shops until mid-November. The Christmas lights went up in the town centre last week but are not lit yet. Beginning in the last week in November until Christmas Eve most of the villages have a Christmas market at which beautiful hand-crafted items of all kinds are for sale and it is possible to pick up lovely hand-made gifts, made from pottery,wood,all kinds of materials, very inexpensively.

On Christmas Eve everyone puts their shoes under the Christmas tree before they go to midnight service and, whilst they are at church, presents appear in the shoes brought by Le Pere Noel. When everyone come back from Church they eat a huge and rich meal called revielle which lasts until three or four in the morning. Christmas Day itself is a quiet family day, well it would have to be after a huge meal in the middle of the night!