Katie in Bordeaux!: Noël en France!

Christmas in France! Was joyeux! I went with my host-family to my host-father's parents' house in the campagne (French countryside), which is sort of like being on a small farm. They have a lot of chickens, an aggressive goose, and many cats (unfortunately, no dogs though). And they're surrounded by rolling fields and old stone houses and everything. Their house is really nice and big, and the second floor is like an apartment for guests. There's a kitchen, a bathroom, three bedrooms, and a dining room area. There's even a fireplace! There are also these really cool hanging hammock chairs, which I spent roughly 75% of my time in.

We had a Christmas tree up there too, and I got to decorate it. I spent 40 minutes untangling a string of lights and wrapping them around the tree, only to discover that they didn't work... but otherwise, it looked nice!

I set this table - pretty nice, huh? This is actually from the
26th, but we can pretend it's from the Réveillon.

We arrived the evening of the 23rd, and the main celebration was the next night, on Christmas Eve. It was me, my host-family, the grandparents, another family with two small children, and a mother and daughter who are family friends. You know how Americans usually eat extra early on holidays? Well French people do the opposite. Around 9:00, I became afraid we wouldn't be eating until like midnight. Luckily though, the appetizers started around 9:30 or 9:45. First was a ton of oysters and some kind of sausage thing, which I passed on, but there was also some really good bread, of which I probably ate half a loaf. For the main course, there was boar and potatoes. I tried a little bit of boar, and it was okay. Then, of course, was the cheese course, with all this really good cheese from Normandy. The adults started getting into a heated conversation about politics which I didn't totally follow, so I just sat there trying different cheeses for like half an hour.

Finally, there was dessert around midnight - chocolate chip cookies! Which I made! And an ice cream buche de Noël. It's weird because French people like don't have chocolate chip cookies, so everyone was like "Ohh, what are these?" "What are these called again?" "How did you make these?" "Uhh... flour and stuff..." Also there are no chocolate chips here, so I had to cut up two chocolate bars by hand! The dedication!

A few minutes after midnight, my host-brother started bugging his parents that Père Noël could come now - turns out they do presents at midnight! After a few minutes, my host-parents gave in and everyone got up so Père Noël could come. There was a six-year-old girl there, and her mom covered her with a blanket on the couch so she couldn't see, and everyone shouted about seeing the sleigh, and my host-father flashed the lights a lot when Père Noël finished. It was adorable! Then all the presents were neatly under the tree and all pretty for like 30 seconds before the kids pounced.

The next day, I thought we would all sleep in after staying up until like 2am, but instead I was awoken by the grating polyphonic melody of the My Little Pony theme song being played repeatedly outside my door, so I rolled out of bed around 9. On actual Christmas, we pretty much sat around and played games and ate more. It was a little weird since actual Christmas is when we do all the celebrating at my house. I missed my family, but I talked to them on the phone for a while which was nice.

We stayed there the day after Christmas too, and had yet another big meal with some family friends who came over for lunch. We also went for a bike ride, so I can check "bike in the French countryside" off my France to-do list!

Some more photos: