Le marché de Père Noël

Usually by this time of year, I'm more than a little bit excited for Christmas but I haven't yet got into the spirit of things this year. It just seems that the French don't go quite as Christmas crazy as we do back home. 


The local supermarkets have only just started to get their Christmas stock in and I've yet to see any shops with their decorations up yet.  I'm not really watching TV these days so I'm missing out on all the Christmas adverts you're constantly bombarded with and as we're travelling back and forth over the holiday period I'm not really going crazy with the present buying as it will be impossible to carry everything with our Scrooge-like EasyJet baggage allowance.


[Note to anyone reading:  Please don't bother getting us any pressies this year! We really won't be missing out. Max and Luke don't understand yet, Lily has everything she could possibly want and being at home with our family and friends is the best present anyway. Just read that back and it sounds a bit mean...what I mean is obviously Lily, Max and Luke will be getting their pressies from Santa Claus and therefore won't need anything else.] 


Anyway this morning I thought we'd head to our local marché de Père Noël in the hope of finding some Christmas cheer. The market didn't really inspire much of the Christmas spirit unfortunately as it was super busy and trying to manoeuvre the double pushchair through the crowds was fairly impossible.


In true Max style, he didn't want to go anywhere near Santa Claus, hated the music the band were playing and wanted to touch everything that had a 'Touchez Pas' sign. Fortunately a crêpe calmed him down and a vin chaud sorted me out.

 Max's worst nightmare

Where's mine mam?

There were a few nice bits and pieces that I could have bought, but nothing that would have travelled home very well, so we left empty handed. Hopefully I'll get in the mood soon somehow!

Another bit of excitement chez nous this weekend was on Saturday when the Batley family from Whitley Bay came to visit for the day. They're considering a move to Geneva, so were in the area checking out some of the international schools. It was great for the kiddies to get together and for us to see some friendly faces from home! If anyone else is in the area, please do call in!

 Max and Joseph

 Birthday brownies

Worn out

Lily giving Amy the lowdown on French life. Or not...

Stu is now over in Ireland for work until late on Wednesday.  He's taken jump leads with him and texted me where he's parked the car to avert another airport carpark disaster.


I'm sure nothing can go wrong this time....