L'Action de Grâce - Thanksgiving

By the time you read this post, Thanksgiving will be finished.  You'll have eaten your fill of turkey and stuffing and all the fancy dishes will be put away.  I wanted to tell you a little about holidays in France.  First, many of you know that Thanksgiving is not a holiday in France. It is just another day like any other, people go to school and work and nobody watches the parade.  There are no 14 pound frozen turkeys to be bought in the grocery store.  There are no recipes for candied sweet potatoes and green bean casserole(I hate green bean casserole!) There are no sappy, tear-jerking Thanksgiving commercials running on the television.  There is no tryptophan induced turkey coma.

Sophia, Thomas, Emily and I made these one Thanksgiving morning a few years ago.

Last year?  I think?

Saratoga Springs Turkey Trot!

I knew that I would miss lots of things during my year in France; my friends, my students, my family, Oscar's ham, Willard and Gore mountains, but I never knew how much I would miss Thanksgiving.  I miss the sales of canned pumpkins and cranberry sauce.  I miss the Saratoga Springs Turkeytrot.  I miss sharing recipes and cooking with my friends and family(Sophie misses macaroni-and-cheese.) This year, we celebrated Thanksgiving in Aix-en-Provence at an organic restaurant, La Coumpagnie.  The meal was sponsored by DAF - Democrats Abroad in France, and there were Americans and French people who decided to share this glorious holiday meal. Upon arrival we were served mulled wine and yummy little appetizers.  We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and green bean casserole!   We sat with a French family and their friends.  They had never experienced a Thanksgiving feast before and it was fun to sit with them.  I encouraged them to have seconds, because that's what you do at Thanksgiving!  At the end we had pumpkin and pecan pies and cheesecake.  No, it was not like home, I didn't expect it to be.  I was thankful to have the opportunity to share our holiday with others.  I am thankful for so much; beautiful weather, outrageously beautiful sunsets, the smell of the trees and the sun shining through the leaves, my friends at home, my friends here, my family here and there, my baby girl(not a baby), my mom who spent a month here with me, my school for letting me have this adventure and to whom I will be forever grateful, and most of all my husband who encouraged me to go on sabbatical and who continually reminds me that it was a good idea.(and again my daughter is THE BEST OF ALL TIME) hacked by Sophie

We had to say hello to the beautiful retired service dog!

YUM!

The Christmas holiday season started not long after Halloween.  Yes, Halloween is celebrated here.  It was different, but it certainly was Halloween.  There were decorations everywhere, pumpkins, kids trick-or-treating, Halloween parties, candy and costumes.  Sophia dressed up as a stick figure.  The kids in our village went to all the different businesses and trick-or-treated.  I happened to be in the butcher shop when a bunch of kids came in.  They were having a great time!

Our front door

My Monster and ghoul!  I mean my mother and girl!

The village of Sainte-Tulle started the Christmas season with a Marché de Noël on Sunday, November 22. There will be a Marché de Noël in some village near here almost every weekend up to Christmas.  The marché here in Saint-Tulle had different vendors selling hand-made items, traditional Christmas delicacies and other gifty kinds of things.  Père Noël was also present as well as a horse drawn carriage.  Later in the evening, the Christmas decorations were lighted and the season officially started. Little by little the villages all around are putting their lights up.  Last Friday night we drove through two villages that were having a lighting ceremony.  The lights are beautiful and seem to put the villages in Christmas mode.

 I look forward to sharing more of our Christmas and holiday experiences in the near future.  I hope all my friends and family had a wonderful Thanksgiving and I hope that your holidays are just a joyous.  

Joyeux Chanukah - Happy Chanukah 

Joyeux Noël - Merry Christmas 

Bonne Année - Happy New Year