My 1st Christmas in France

I have always spent Christmas as home in the UK with my family. Since a little dot, I've spent Christmas eve and day with my family, watching Christmas TV, putting the presents around the tree and eating mince pies.  Since meeting my husband he too has always spent Christmas with his family and therefore for 4 years we made the decision not to spent Christmas together but to continue spending it with our direct families.  My husband has an elderly grandmother and up until 2007 I had both grandparents, so it was important to us to be with them during the festivities.

However, a funny story, after our wedding last year, my Grandad walk me down the aisle and handed me to Dan and afterwards said 'well that's it now, you are a married lady and if you want to be together for Christmas you should, you should spend Christmas together, your married and you need to look after each other'.  I laughed, it is funny what things come into people's head first.  IT was also very sweet.MY grandad is very old fashioned and a woman looks after her man and therefore for him, I was Dan wife and my job was to be there for him and look after him.  So there I had it, his permission.  Permission that I could spend Christmas with my new husband.

Living in France, I decided that I would spend Christmas in France.  My first in France and my first not with my family, but thanks to the technology now; Skype, we were able to communicate and see each other which was great.

Spending Christmas with my husband was amazing and it was so nice waking up with him on Christmas day.  Although, there were some adjustments I had to carry out.  For in my husband's family they celebrate Christmas after midnight on Christmas eve.  Something very different for me, but I was happy to embrace it and see what it was like.  Its was fun an different and I didn't really notice the change or feel sad about it. I think everything was done at the right tile for my husband and I and everything felt right. I was really happy as I wasn't sure if I would have surprise feeling on the day, but I'm really happy that I didn't and I had a memorable and lovely Christmas with my new official family in laws.

It is not tradition in France to celebrate Christmas after midnight on Christmas eve however, there are many that choose to celebrate it this way, where in England it is pretty much unheard of.