Celebrate Winter in Paris

From the TS Editors:

I can’t help it.  When I hear a new Mylene Farmer disk, I’m like a moth to a flame. At the moment her new c.d. Monkey Me has me captive. Probably unbeknownst to most stateside, Mylene epitomizes the post 80’s French disco angel … her music is largely a driving electronic dance beat, sung in French and full of breathy, panting synths and inane rhyming couplets. At the higher register her voice totters to a shriek; cue the back-up singers!  I try to decipher her quizzical French lyrics which is how I got on to her in the first place; trying to learn that sexy language. My teacher told me to listen to French music, right? So, I did.  And this is where I landed!

My thoughts go to Paris; I wonder if they are playing her in the trendy boîtes on the Left Bank, the smoky cafes in Montmartre and the trashy bars in the Marais? I just wanna get up and do the silly disco wiggle to my girl and mouth the words that I memorized.  Clap my hands, close my eyes, and step back in time.  Maybe on New Year’s Eve? Thank you, Mylene!  Thank you, Paris for not letting go of your disco heroine! I hope I hear you there, blaring in one of the shops, like Kenzo on the Place des Victoires, where I will be searching for cool French stuff (on sale, of course), that everyone will ask me about when I get home.

Our favorite contributor, Sharon Hudgins, spins a different kind of Parisian tale after spending Christmas there last year.  I wish I had been there with her.  The Squire received her story just weeks prior to the terrible bombings and decided we needed to run it. From someone who lived through 9/11 and watched every New Yorker get on with their lives, I know Paris is now doing the same.  And hallelujah to everyone who gets off an Air France flight to find one of the most captivating places any time of the year, regardless of terrorism.

Happy New Year, Mylene!

I’m listening and dancing!

Winter Romance

Last winter my husband and I followed our hearts to Paris. When we lived in Europe years ago, we’d enjoyed spending our winter holidays there, from Christmas through New Year’s Eve to Three Kings Day. Occasionally we’d even wake up to see snowflakes sifting over the rooftops of the city, like a scene from an Impressionist painting.  On those earlier trips we found the city to be surprisingly quiet during the holiday season. Most of the locals were at home with their families or away on holiday somewhere else. The leaden skies and damp, chilly, sometimes freezing weather kept most tourists at bay. Except for last-minute shoppers on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, the stores weren’t crowded at all. The great museums were almost empty. And only on New Year’s Eve did you need a reservation at most restaurants. Sometimes we even felt like we had Paris all to ourselves.

No longer. Paris is now a major tourist destination for the winter holidays. Hotels and restaurants are packed. Lines at the museums are long, really long. Department stores are madhouses. And on the streets you’ll hear nearly as much English and Chinese as pure Parisian French.

But still, as Rick says to Ilsa in Casablanca, “We’ll always have Paris.” So can you. Don’t hesitate. Go.

Holiday Specials

Paris in winter has something for everyone – open-air and indoor Christmas markets in several parts of the city; Nativity scenes and sacred music concerts in historic churches; Menorahs and special Hanukkah foods in the Jewish delis and bakeries; strings of sparkling lights across the grand boulevards; children’s noses pressed against the glass of department store windows animated with fanciful displays;  cheerful families toting wrapped packages in the subway; smiling vendors at the food stalls; even friendly waiters in the restaurants.

You’ll find more than a dozen colorful Christmas markets located in different parts of Paris, some held for only a few days in December, others lasting six weeks or longer, from Advent through Epiphany. Some Christmas markets specialize in products from a particular region of France, such as Alsace, whereas others feature handmade crafts by local artisans. Noël Gourmand is Paris’s newest food fair, this year held from December 11-14 at the Carrousel du Louvre, a glitzy underground shopping mall in the heart of the city. There you can taste artisanal cheeses from the Basque region, wines from the Loire, meats from the Ardennes, and sweets from Provence. And no Christmas market anywhere in Paris would be complete without roasted chestnuts, chewy nougat, and hot spiced wine.

Look at Time Out Paris online or pick up a copy of the weekly guide, Pariscope, at the nearest newsstand for listings of museum hours, galleries, special exhibitions, concerts, restaurants, and films. During the holidays many churches offer afternoon and evening concerts of Christmas music, some free, others for €5 to €30 per ticket. Using Pariscope, we were sometimes able to pack in three concerts of world-class choral and instrumental music on a single day. The highlight was a beautiful Christmas concert at the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. Free tickets are available online, beginning in early December, or you can just show up at Notre Dame a couple of hours before a concert and wait in a long line for any remaining free seats.

Make Yourself at Home

You can celebrate Christmas at home when you rent an apartment for the holidays in Paris. Yule Log Christmas cake, photo courtesy of Sharon Hudgins.

Paris hotels fill up quickly at Christmas time, even though many of them charge high-season rates from mid-December to early January. If you plan to stay a week or longer, consider renting a private room or an entire apartment instead. We rented a spacious, beautifully decorated one bedroom apartment in the trendy Marais district (near the Place des Vosges) for €120 a night, plus a €50 cleaning fee—less than half the price of a mid-range hotel in the same area.

Renting an apartment has several advantages, especially if it’s located near a Metro stop and several convenient shops. You can have fun (and save money) buying your own foods and wines at little local stores and big open-air markets, then bring them back to your apartment for a cozy dinner at home. Even if you don’t want to cook, you can buy excellent prepared foods such as pâtés, cheeses, rotisserie chickens, cooked seafood, Burgundy beef stew, paella, couscous, fresh breads, and luscious pastries at the delis, grocery stores, bakeries, and pastry shops all over Paris. Wine shops will also recommend the best vintages to accompany your store-bought meal. And if you don’t feel like lugging all that food back to your apartment, some stores will even deliver groceries and wines free of charge or for a small fee.

Shop ’til you Drop 

A Parisian bakery shop sells many versions of the traditional Yule Log Christmas Cake. Photo courtesy of Sharon Hudgins.

Many people go to Paris for the pleasure of shopping. The big department stores are lavishly decorated for the holiday season, and even small shops hang holly swags, strings of lights, and shiny balls in their windows. Florists construct red-and-green Christmas bouquets, and food stores sell products featured only at that time of year. But plan to do your shopping at least a week before Christmas or, better yet, at the after-Christmas sales. In the last few days before Christmas the major department stores are so crowded you can hardly move. Smaller establishments—boutiques, chocolate shops, wine stores, antique shops—are more accessible. But prices are lower almost everywhere after Christmas, even lower after January 1, and best of all after the winter holidays end on January 6. That’s when the department stores have their winter clearance sales and real bargains can be found.

Celebrate!

If you want to enjoy a special meal at a restaurant on Christmas Eve, make reservations well in advance. Many restaurants are closed on the evening of December 24, and even more are not open on Christmas Day. A fun alternative is to buy some good wine, cheese, and bread—along with a traditional French Christmas cake, a bûche de Noël (Yule log)—to take back to your hotel room or apartment for a private feast. Then head to one of the gorgeous gothic churches for a memorable midnight service by candlelight.

New Year’s Eve on December 31 (known as Saint-Sylvestre day) is the time to party at a restaurant, with friends and strangers, until the early hours of the morning. Many restaurants offer a special Réveillon dinner, a fixed-price, multi-course, New Year’s Eve meal with Champagne. Some smaller places charge as little as €50 per person (with wine extra), or you can splurge at the high-end eateries for several hundred euros apiece. Wherever you choose to eat, reservations are a must.

Restaurant Polidor has hardly changed in 100 years.

Last New Year’s Eve we celebrated at Restaurant Polidor, a relic of France’s culinary heritage. Polidor still serves the same kind of simple, old-fashioned, very affordable comfort food like you could find in little Paris bistros half a century ago. Nothing trendy or minimalist-modern here—just small wooden tables covered with red-and-white checked paper tablecloths, bentwood chairs, dark wood wainscoting, big mirrors on the wall, and plenty of nostalgia atmosphere. Filmgoers will recognize Polidor as the place in Woody Allen’s film, Midnight in Paris, where Gil Pender meets Ernest Hemingway back in the 1920s. And indeed, Polidor has been serving the famous and the not-so-famous ever since it was established in 1845.

If you’re a cat lover and missing your own felines when you’re away from home, you can even celebrate New Year’s Eve in the company of 16 rescue cats at the cozy Cafe des Chats Bastille, one of Paris’s two cat cafes, where the furry friends roam free among the tables. And wherever you choose to party, you don’t have to worry about staying out really late. From 6 p.m. on New Year’s Eve until 5 a.m. the next day, the Paris subway runs continually overnight, and it’s even free of charge.

Finally, finish up your Parisian holiday with a special treat on January 6, Three Kings Day. In all the pastry shop windows you’ll see round, flat pastries with a gold paper crown on top. Those are galettes des Rois, the traditional King’s Cakes of northern France. A small porcelain or plastic prize is baked inside the cake, which is made from layers of puff pastry often with a frangipane filling. Whoever gets the slice with the prize inside is crowned “king for a day.” At some Three Kings Day parties, the prize-winner also has to buy drinks for everyone around the table.

So let Paris wish you a Joyeux Noël (Merry Christmas), a Bonne Année (Happy New Year), and a Bonne Fête des Rois (Happy Three Kings Day) on your next trip to France!