Christmas Hits the Malls in France

When I arrived at the mall this morning, everything was alight with Christmas decorations. We don’t have Thanksgiving to official mark the season, so it’s sort slinks in at its own pace.

Before I entered the automatic doors, I needed to bypass the soldier with a machine gun, and  the security guard asked to search my purse before I entered the store. But otherwise, it was Christmas as usual.

There is now a chocolate stand strategically placed.

And lights and santa chairs fill the corridors.

(The santa will be very skinny as usual).

They were filming something in the boulangerie section – not sure what it will be.

The legs of cured ham are proudly displayed.

There is an abundance of tiny pumpkins. In the absence of canned pumpkin, which is oh-so easy, I might get up the courage to make something pumpkin-y with these little guys. In any case, I bought one.

Otherwise, it’s all about the chocolate.

There are rows

and rows

and rows

of chocolate.

On the kitsch-end of the decorations there are these guys. Shiny dogs that you do – oh, I don’t know what with.

The larger decoration that needs to stay in the store.

And the rows of lights, trees and decorations. Not even to mention the toys.

Oh, the toys. I’m not even going there yet.

This display always catches my eye with its colourful artisanal jewellery.

But why would I need that when my sons have got things covered? Gabriel (almost 10) was so excited to give me this ring that he bought with his own money for my birthday. And William was so excited to give me this bracelet which he (almost) bought with his own money. (Juliet replaced the umbrella she broke, which made me laugh).

At church yesterday, Gabriel checked to make sure I was wearing my jewellery, then turned to my friend to watch her reaction as she admired it.

“You know when you said you wanted diamonds mom? Well …”

proudly, with a flourish of his hand

“Now you have them!”

Oh, my Gabriel. I have even better.

Comments

I love to hear from you, friends. You can comment using the box below or your Facebook profile. But FB doesn't notify me of new comments, so if the post is more than a week old and you want to make sure I see your comment, it's better to use the comment box. Merci!