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| our christmas table |
It is officially winter break in Evreux! I head back to America to celebrate the holidays with family and friends on Monday, but before then, it's time to party in France! Last night, the other assistants and I got together for a traditional French Christmas dinner to celebrate before we all part for the holidays. We had quite a spread! And everything was particularly fancy and special for Christmas.
We started with the apéritif (drinks and hors d'oeuvres). We had blinis with salmon, pain d'épice (which is like gingerbread), foie gras, and a delicious onion spread. Very rich foods, and very special for Christmas. Then came dinner! It consisted of turkey (traditional in France for Christmas) with chestnuts, green beans, potatoes, stuffing, and dressing. Delicious!
After a filling dinner came dessert. French families eat a bûche de Noël, which literally means "yule log". It is a cake, made with either dough or ice cream, in the shape of a fire log. They can be very elaborately decorated, as ours were! One was made of ice cream, one was made with chestnut spread, and the other was made with chocolate. And the two made of cake were hand decorated--check out the beautiful marzipan leaves!
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| the bûches de Noel, all 3 of them! |
With everyone content and full of food, we played a little white elephant game. Everyone brought a small gift (some were real, some were really silly...), and we had to answer questions about Christmas to be able to pick a gift. It was very goofy, and everyone was laughing :) All together, it was a wonderful little celebration with food and friends! And of course, a beautiful blending of cultures, languages, and traditions.
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| me and my white elephant gift--a flower :) |
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| the Christmas tree. literally a tree. |
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| table chatter |
pax christi.
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