Oh there's no place like the French countryside for the holidays...

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you ...Christmas in February!! Pardon the delay on these pictures and stories, but wouldn't you know -the holidays tend to be quite the busy time. And then after the holidays its the back to school and the back to work and the cold and ... well you get the picture. Speaking of pictures, this beautiful house you're looking at to your right is.. yes, where I spent my Christmas this year. If you're already jealous you might want to move onto the next blog in your "dashboard" because my French Country Christmas I assure you, rocked. This house, the one in the photo, is the country home of my host mom Béatrice. For those of you who are confused.. yes, my host parents do have a country home, remember way back to the post called Un Weekend à la Campagne that is their country home, this is the country home that belongs to Béa's parents, and is the "holiday home" where the family gathers for special occasions, like Christmas....right.

The house is just outside of the small town called "Pommiers." Pommiers just happens to be the location of an old castle and fortress.. again, right. This is a picture of the church's steeple through an arch inside of the fortress. The church which is 11th century is where we celebrated Christmas eve mass as well as where Béatrice and Pierre François got married! They walked down through this arch on the way to their reception. RIGHT. We arrived into town three days before Christmas to help "bon-papa" AKA grandpa prepare the house for the company. I stayed in a bedroom (one of just over 10,000) with the girls on the third floor, and we spent the days gathering fire wood, playing croquet on the lawn and taking walks into the town. On Christmas eve, all of the family started arriving, we were 17 in total.

The entrance to the church is on the left, you can see the courtyard everywhere else.

Victoria, Lara, and Béatrice on our walk through town

Early in the morning on Christmas eve, we had begun our preparations for the big meal that night --you think eating is exciting for French people in general, just imagine their Christmas dinner! Soon after everyone was relatively settled in, we had the "apéritif" our before dinner drink and snack. This included small olive, sausage, and cheese poppers (that we are making above!) Caviar, dried sausage, and of course, about 5 or 6 bottles of champagne. At 8 the entire family went to mass ...it was a bit depressing. Mom --they need some pointers on liturgy, oh, and on the tempo of "Il est né le divin enfant." After mass we.....

Opened Presents!!!! After we had all exchanged gifts, (and drank about 500 more glasses of champagne!) we sat down to dinner... at 10:30. I give you,

le menu

Entrée : Fois Gras, Baby arugula salad, oysters, white wine

Plat Principal : salad, bacon and onion tarte, red wine

Fromage : st félicien, compté, chèvre, gouda avec cumin, brebis, red wine

Dessert : mandarin and orange salad, triple chocolate bouche de noël, "papillotes," red wine

Yes, it was a very Merry Christmas indeed!