Paris, FRANCE. December, 1998. The French customarily eat oysters for Christmas. Seafood restaurants and stores are open all day, on both the 24th and 25th. So on Christmas Day I bought a bucket of oysters from Brittany. I persuaded the oyster vendor to shuck them, which he did as a favor because there was no one else around.
Christmas for us started on the 23rd with a climb up the Tour Eiffel. We'd never done this before, mainly because of long lines of tourists. But tourists stay home for the holidays, and the French go back to their villages, so we had the Eiffel Tower pretty much to ourselves. There were a few tourists there, but they didn't get in the way, at least not on the second level, which is as far as we got. We climbed, rather than take the sissy elevator. The views from the second floor lived up to their billing, especially the Trocadero fountain water blasts just across the Seine.
We came back down to earth and went for coffee and pastries at the Eiffel pastry shop on the Avenue de la Bourdonnais, down the street from the American University. It's one of Paris's best pastry shops, surprising considering all the tourists around.
On the 24th we went to the department stores on Boulevard Haussmann: Printemps, Galleries Lafayette, etc. On the roof of the Printemps we took in another winter view, and Vicki checked out the price of her favorite makeup, and we listened to street musicians. But the main reason for going there was to look at the store windows, with cute dolls and puppets doing Christmas things in ways that Vicki finds way more charming than I do. After the department stores we went to Notre Dame to see the creche (nativity scenes) and to observe the preparations for the big midnight mass. The Cardinal himself, what's-his-name, was to do the show. There was a line to see the creche, so we didn't go in, and we missed the midnight mass, having better things to do and, besides, we try to avoid festive throngs.
On Christmas eve we went to dinner with friends: salmon pate flavored with Coquilles St. Jacques (I think these are scallops, right?); tartre de poireau (leeks); two kinds of brie and a chevre (goat cheese); and omelette de niege, which I'd call baked Alaska. We drank champagne with the first two courses, and a fine Pomerol with the cheese. Cognac and chocolates afterwards. No oysters, even though our hostess was French.
On Christmas morning Vicki and I walked around Montmartre. We love to wander around big cities when there's nothing whatever going on, like at four in the morning, for example, or on Christmas. Oyster vendors were out, a few bakeries were selling baguettes and pastries, and just one of every type of food store was open, for a few hours in the morning, so you could get something you might need at the last minute for the family Christmas dinner: candy, wine, cheese, fresh vegetables, meat, gourmet take-out. No fine restaurants were open in our neighborhood. The Fourmi, our favorite bohemian cafe down the street, was closed from 3pm Christmas eve to 3pm Christmas day.
We returned home after the walk and Vicki made French toast with blueberry syrup. I read a book--Emile Zola's Therese Racquin--and then we went out for espresso at the Fourmi and to buy the oysters for dinner.
Which is where we came in. Merry Christmas, wherever and whenever.