I do love the holiday season in Paris.
There are so many signs the herald the beginning of the holiday season. This is an update on three previous posts – you can see just how special these are traditions that are year after year!
Beaujolais nouveau. Probably the first sign of the holiday season is the arrival of Beaujolais Nouveau wine. I’ve written about this special day in a different post . Here are two photos. One is a picture I took last year and one this year!
The return of our local weekend oyster guy. Just in front of our local Carrefour we have a local oyster guys. He first appears in late November and stays until the weather gets too warm for selling oysters outside without refrigerations – so until March or so. He comes from Bretagne and arrives Friday nights and sells oysters through Sunday morning. Since the Carrefour is just two steps from our door it is super convenient.
The oyster guys at the market. In addition to being able to buy oysters on the weekends from our local guy, we can buy oysters at the market. Just like our oyster guy they are specialized in oysters but they do also carry some other items like “boulots” – a type of snail. It is already cooked and so yummy.
Christmas lights on our street. The Christmas lights appear on our street. They are usually turned on around Dec 1, though there isn’t a strict date. Of course, it isn’t just our street. Most streets with many shops also have lights. The “commercants” – the shopkeepers – band together pay for them. Each section of commercants therefore has a different set of lights. Depending on the street the lights run 3-5 blocks long. The ones immediately below us start where we are and go south. I guess the commercants going north didn’t want to participate!
Chocolates in the stores and Panettone in the stores. Need I say more. Boxes of chocolates appear in all of the grocery stores. Each chain has their own brand. While they aren’t as exquisite as those from the chocolatiers (the fancy handmade chocolates such as Patrick Roger, Pierre Herme, Le Chocolat by Alain Ducasse) they are all good. All much better than the grocery store chocolates in the US.
Then there are the decorations!! The most important are the trees put up and decorated by the city as well as the window and interior displays of the large department stores such as Galeries Lafayette, Printemps, and le Bon Marche.
Maman & Fille 