Does Father Christmas know where to find us in France?
It was cold, it was basic but it was probably one of the best christmases I ever had and eleven years later after COVID ravaged christmases, its nice to reminisce
After the last couple of Christmases we’ve had what could be nicer than looking back on one that was filled with a lot of joy and optimism? Covid hit our Christmas hard in the last couple of years as we were rule abiding to the extreme. My Mum spent Christmas 2020 on her own with a roast dinner for one having just put my Dad into a care home and living in a different ‘tier’ to us. We at least had each other but the guilt and sadness that both parents were alone in very different ways made it hard to crack open the champagne at 8am as we usually would. It is hard to luxuriate in your own nuclear family when there is so much sadness on the periphery.
By Christmas 2021 things were in theory easier, but we found ourselves without our elder son for the first time for reasons that are his to tell not mine. My Mum, still unable to travel elected to spend the day alone (she lives a six hour drive away) and my Dad was being forced into jollity and having paper hats put on him in his care home - if he knew what was going on he’d be mortified. Dementia is a leveller in a way that my sophisticated, urbane father would balk at but thankfully he can’t see himself singing along to Slade at a communal lunch.
The Christmas I chronicle below was quite the opposite to those above. My parents didn’t come - but it was out of choice as our French house was still very basic. I think they also accepted that it would be nice for us to be a family of four with our young children in our exciting new project. And they had each other and were in good health so we could chat on the day and send pics. All was good.
I’m not sure if the post below truly captures how basic the house was at this time. I think the kitchen, downstairs bathroom and our bedroom were the only really habitable rooms and the walk between those rooms was perilous. There may even have been rats still living in what would become our living room - we locked the giant doors and didn’t go in there. We had a very simple tree and decorations mainly made out of foliage from the garden (see pic above!) but who cares about that stuff when you’ve got a massive open fire and a fondu?
It was freezing and the open fire in the kitchen was really the only source of heat but some nights even that wasn’t enough so we had to pull our makeshift kitchen table right in front of it for our games of scrabble. And run fast wrapped in a blanket when we needed the loo like people trying to get out of burning buildings.
The floors were all damp and the boys room was still pretty derelict but we had hot water bottles and a lot of blankets and somehow my memory of it was a shabby cosiness. There are lots more Christmases to come at La Maison Blanche including ones with my parents and with friends but this first one I remember as being extra special. Days before computer games and ipads - making new traditions, the boys old enough to be excited and young enough not to be cynical.
Blog post first posted in 2013
Probably one of the best things I have ever done is spend that first Christmas in our French house. Freezing cold? Yes. No Christmas Downton? Sadly not. Hand picked baubles from The White Company? Nope. Instead we had a goose with its head and gubbins still in place, a tree decorated with paper chains and some borrowed flashing fairy lights from Serge. And we had Pere Noel. And he came, he came!
I LOVE Christmas. Always have. Family Christmas for me has always been a special day of eating, game playing, Xmas TV watching and more eating. My grandad would rally us all into a game which involved kneeling on a chair and throwing cards into his upturned, felt, trilby hat which always had a thick layer of Brylcream on the inner rim that was residue from his heavily Brylcreamed hair. I think you scored points for getting the cards on the brim, in the hat or on a newspaper the hat was placed on. Sadly I can’t remember exactly. Which is one of the problems with family traditions – you’ve got to keep them going. My grandad died almost thirty years ago and I don’t think we played the trilby game ever again without him so now I can’t remember it.
But you make new traditions – and for us, the winter of 2011 meant all new FRENCH Christmas traditions. Starting with Lucy, our goose. At home we always had turkey despite Peters pleas for goose for the best part of a decade. I wasn’t sure I’d like it and besides we ALWAYS have Turkey I argued. So Peter was overruled. Until this year.
My parents had decided it was too far and would be too cold (they were right) so elected to stay home which meant I was the lone voice of dissent against the goose. Peter’s gain was Lucy’s loss. As I had to work all the way up to Xmas eve, Peter and the boys went on ahead and I did the very civilised London to Pau flight from City Airport later on. This meant it was up to them to ‘get everything ready’….. A goose was bought from Leclerc and a tree procured with some help from Serge. The boys made paper chains to put on it and by the time I arrived there wasn’t much to do except get into a onsie (no photos!) and sit in front of the fire with our trusty scrabble board.
In France children leave their shoes out for Pere Noel to fill with chocolates. They also eat chocolate logs. In fact it is small miracle that French children aren’t all enormous given the vast array of chocolate options open to them. Some mornings I wake to find my kids eating pain chocolat, drinking chocolat-chaud and about to top it all up with some bread and Nutella. If we lived here permanently I would have to treat chocolate with same strict quota rules I have I place for playing Minecraft.
And on Christmas Eve we made fondu and I added too much kirsch and the children said it tasted like ‘wine’ (let’s not phone Esther Rantzen to report the fact my kids seem to know what wine tastes like – I’m guessing they recognise the smell) but I declared fondu and all it’s stomach filling, artery hardening properties a new White family Christmas tradition.
I once read that children like traditions. They love it when as a family you do the same thing every year. Like my Grandad and his trilby. Well so it shall be with fondu even though no one seems to like it but me. And in years to come we even inflict it upon guests who don’t like it. I care not because ITS TRADITION!
And Pere Noel came. And he had had presence of mind to get English books like a Lego annual not in French. And he filled the shoes with chocolate (cos we needed a bit MORE chocolate) and he filled the Christmas sacks with presents. And Lucy was cooked the night before and reheated on Christmas Day (Jamie Oliver’s best day ahead goose recipe) and we all loved it. Even me. And we huddled around our tiny table in the kitchen (the only warm room) and we pulled crackers brought from England and put on silly paper hats. Sebastian even ate a sprout. A tradition he was not keen to continue but which we have made an annual ‘I’m a celebrity get me out of here bush tucker trial’ style experience.
And there was no pressure to even get out of our pyjamas (tho we did) and there was no timetable. if we wanted to eat at 4 o’clock or 9 o’clock we could. And once we’d packed the children off to bed we got the scrabble set out again and didn’t even mind that we were missing Christmas Day Corrie (well I minded a bit but I’d sky-plused it back home anyway) And we wished it could be Christmas every day. Just like this one.