The Twelve Days

As a child, I heard about the 12 days of Christmas in a song every year.  But nobody ever explained what it meant.  Because my grandmother's birthday was on January 6, I at least learned that that was the twelfth day itself.  When I moved to Europe, I learned about Epiphany, the official name of the twelfth day.  More importantly, I learned about the Galette du Roi, or King's cake in English. 

As we did not end up entertaining at all during the Christmas season, we had company for both New Year's Eve and Epiphany, keeping the Christmas theme.  Here's how we did the two dinners, keeping the same menu because it was so interesting.

Noël 2015

Christmas for the French is very much like Thanksgiving for Americans.  It's a very family oriented event, and it often includes very specific dishes for their big meal.  While I see these foods in the grocery store every year, I'm not too sure what they do with them, as we've never been considered family to anybody and been invited to share.

Until this year.  We have now experienced our first French Christmas as guests in a French home, and I thought I'd share it with you.

Seasonal tea

Having celebrated a lovely Thanksgiving weekend which included family members, we jumped right into the Christmas season with a Ladies' Tea at church.  My part involved getting the church prettily decorated and then photographing the event, while Doc Leo continued to perform his magic on the sound board.

It did make a fun Saturday afternoon and a nice way to jumpstart the Season.

Scarf art

I have an American friend who is currently living in Mexico.  Among all her other ventures, she has started doing sewing pattern designing.  In looking for testers for her newest project, she asked me if I would be interested.  Never having done such a thing before, I thought it could be rather fun.

While I'm fairly confident in my sewing abilities, neither Doc Leo nor I are particularly professional when it comes to modeling and photographing, but I needed to show off the product and explain how to use it.  Here are the results of our efforts, as well as various styling ideas I came up with.

Thankful for family

There are two major aspects of the American Thanksgiving holiday.  One is the traditional feast usually involving a huge whole roasted turkey and autumn side dishes and desserts.  The other is the gathering together of family members whenever possible.

While we've managed to present the requisite turkey almost every year despite the difficulties of acquiring one in a foreign environment, we've usually had to forgo the family aspect.  However, our celebration this year involved a number of family units, including very small members, which gave our evening a whole different aspect.

A global Thanksgiving

There are principally two countries that have an official Thanksgiving, although they represent different celebrations.  Canada actually has the oldest origin, but the US probably has the most well known. 

What is rather ironic is that the American version is rapidly becoming a thing to do in England, as it represents dissidents leaving that country for elsewhere!  Perhaps that explains why my good British friend Ellie, out of the clear blue sky, decided to host a Thanksgiving dinner this year.  Perhaps it was her first.  I thought you might enjoy how the evening went!

Municipal Homage

The French president has declared a three day period of mourning for the country in light of the terrorist attacks in Paris.  Many cultural events have been canceled, including our first chorale concert of the year.  (We had to replace our canceled country dance with something new.)

Officially, large groups are not supposed to gather for a week, but that hasn't stopped a number of spontaneous vigils all over.

There was a countrywide call for a minute of silence at noon today.  Our village took that opportunity to lay floral arrangements at the local war monument, which are found all over France after the massive losses of World War I.

France in mourning

As a global resident for many decades, I care about what happens to my fellow inhabitants of this planet.  As a resident of France for over 25 years, I care what happens in my adopted country.  As a resident of greater Paris for 13 years, I have a specific sentiment for the life that continues there, which includes family and close friends. 

While anybody local from my world is all safe and sound, the events that unfolded over the weekend took place in areas that were quite familiar to me, areas that we passed through all the time.  In fact, the only concert I ever got to took place in the Bataclan. 

I would just like to share with you tributes from all the over the world that I came across, expressing global solidarity against atrocity towards totally innocent victims.

Bologna: Architecture & History

In my last post, I introduced you to Bologna, Italy, viewed from a tourist's standpoint.  This time, I'm going to take you on a little guided visit of the city itself, as I saw it in a single day.  I love visiting these old European cities, many having had their heyday before my own country even existed.  Not only do I come from a newly developed country in the scheme of world history, but I spent most of my non-expat life in the newer parts of it.

I hope you will enjoy a bit of this part of the Old World from my perspective, especially if you've never had the opportunity to see it yourselves.

Bologna: Travel & Culture

We just had an opportunity to take a little trip to Bologna, Italy.  It's been about seven years since we were there last, so it was really exciting when an old customer needed Doc Leo's expertise one more time.  We were only there for one day, but half the fun is driving the countryside the days before and after, which doubled the pleasure.

As this is my first major trip outside France since I started this blog, I thought I would share some of the sights and experiences of visiting a very old Italian city.  This post will cover the aspect from a tourist's viewpoint.