Dimanche au Samedi, 2-8 Decembre 2012: Christmas Spectacles

This week was filled with tons of fun stuff due to the upcoming holidays. If you thought that Christmas was a big deal in the states, you would think it was insane here. The displays here are magnificent! Though the French don't really do much decorating of their houses, the government takes care of the rest of the city. It's absolutely breath-taking! Other than the lights, there are also a lot of traditions and rituals such as La Crèche Provençale. It's wheat (Le Blé de la St. Barbe) that's grown for the manger where you place the Baby Jesus. Most homes in France have their very own nativity scene.

The kids had a lot of events this week. Since Céline had to work. I spent a lot of time with the kids at their schools. Camille had a Christmas market at her school where vendors sold food and other goods that are holiday-related. Léa and Baptiste had a concert at their school where I heard a lot of familiar songs--in french of course.

The family and I finished the week with a trip to Lyon. It was the Fête des Lumières. The Festival of Lights is a 3 day spectacle in Lyon featuring, you guessed it, lights! Didier, Antoine, Nicholas, and Gregoire all rode in one car while Céline, the triplets, Google, and I all rode in another. We did english lessons and review during the 2.5 hours it took us to drive there. The kids seem pretty ADD at times--although I don't believe in that. We'd teach them a word, it's origin, and literal translation so that it would make sense to them and they would forget the word itself 5 minutes later. We ended up going over the same 10 words the entire trip to Lyon. Ha haha. That must've been agonizing for them but english is the language of communication...We stayed at Didier's parents' house for the weekend. They were so excited to have us! They welcomed us all in with a Raclette dinner--one of my favorite meals. I met Didier's oldest 3 children Melanie, Jeremy, and Julien during dessert who seem to be super cool.

We all went out to the festival after dinner. To make things easier, Didier and Antoine were paired together while Céline had the girls and I was assigned Baptiste and Nicholas. We left Gregoire home because it was so cold out. Nicholas called my left arm and Baptiste claimed my right. They were so stinkin' cute! They were clutching on for dear life--on the metro, in the festival, where there were crowds, were there were no crowds. They just wanted to hold onto me. I especially liked them telling me every 15 minutes that they love me and making me lean down for kisses. Yeah, I know, they totally have kiddy crushes on me but they really love me too.

 
As for the festival itself, it was absolutely magnificent! Words cannot describe how beautiful it was. We saw two grand shows and dozens of minor (less intricate but not smaller) spectacles. I was completely mesmerized by the displays. I'm surprised my camera was able to take such good pictures. Pour vous qui n'avez jamais vu!