FONTastique: 10 Things I Love About Christmas

Those of you who know me well know that I'm a bit of a Christmas nut. Here are a couple of my favorite things...

This is when it all starts. Watching the parade signals the beginning of the holiday season for me. After the parade, listening to Christmas carols is fair game in my book. Which brings me to number 2

I love almost all Christmas carols, but two are my very favorites. The first is O Holy Night because Pooh's voice sounded so beautiful when she used to sing it. I was honored when she offered to teach me how to sing in during my voice lessons with her and the song reminds me of her every time I hear it. My second favorite Christmas carol is way on the other end of the spectrum. It's All I Want for Christmas is You by Mariah Carey. Yes, it's about as cheesy and commercial as they get, but I have a special place in my heart for it because when he's feeling especially nice, Karim will perform it for me. Some of you have been lucky enough to see him in action :)

This is a new addition to the list. I had the good fortune of visiting my friend Emily DeYoung Becker and her husband Marc in Strasbourg this past weekend. It was an amazing weekend - so great that it will get its own post - but one of my favorite discoveries of the weekend was orange gingerbread tea, know as orange saveur pain d'epices over here. I've started drinking a lot of tea since our apartment is rather drafty and yum, is this new flavor delicious. In fact, I just finished up a cup. An alcoholic beverage that hits the same notes is cremant (Alsatian sparkling wine) with a splash of gingerbread liquor. Yum. Erin - you'd love that one

My dad and brother go to bed on the early side, so this became a tradition for mom and me several years back. Sometimes we're deliriously tired by the end of it, but it's worth it. I'll miss it this year :(

My thinking is, if it's going to be cold and cloudy, it might as well snow, right? Luckily, it's been snowing on and off here in Fonty since Thanksgiving. Here's a shot taken at the Fontainebleau chateau grounds:

Every year when I was a little girl, I would go over to spend a few nights with my grandmother, Pooh, before Christmas. She'd pull out her recipe book and we'd spend a weekend making half a dozen different types of Christmas cookies. This is one of my favorite childhood memories. Sometimes Pooh would even let me sleep in her bed, despite the fact that I would thrash around in my sleep and leave her with bruised legs. That's love

I love themed parties, and by now you know how much I love Christmas. So Christmas parties really are the best, in my opinion. Growing up, we would always get dressed up to go to my aunt and uncle's Christmas Eve parties, where the adults would get more than a little tipsy on whiskey sours and my cousin Muriel and I (known as the giggle twins for more than a few years) would do our best to avoid the cheek pinching and would hide out in her room for as long as we could pull off. I'm sad I'll be missing this year's SmartBrief party, as they've proven to be entertaining in the past. And Phil - I hope you pull out that hunter vest again this year! Christmas party season has already started up this year in Fontainebleau. On Tuesday night, we made our way to Chateau de Fleury, which is the most ridiculous student housing facility I've ever seen. It's a GIGANTIC chateau that's been refurbished with posh apartments. Very cool. Here are a couple photos from the night:

Two of the twenty Santas in attendance

Kelsey, a fellow elf, aka lover of all things Christmas

Max, Justin and Karim feeling Christmasy. Or not, ahem Justin

Sadly, this is as open as my eyes got in all the photos that night!

Later in the evening, we were treated to a Santa dance off

8. Reconnecting with family and friends

I've screwed up the formatting of my list, but bear with me for the last three. One of the reasons I love Christmas parties so much is that they give you a perfect excuse to reconnect with family and friends you may have been neglecting for the past month since you've been cramming in as much work and Christmas shopping as possible. I will very much miss spending Christmas with my mom, dad and brother this year, but I'm looking forward to spending my first actual Christmas with Ann, Nehdi and Selim

9. Shopping for Christmas presents

Yes, I actually enjoy Christmas shopping. Two favorite stops are the Lush store, filled with highly scented, natural body products festively wrapped for the holidays and the Lindt store for white chocolate truffle balls for Karim. Oh, and a few milk chocolate ones for myself

10. Strasbourg, France

As I mentioned, I just visited Strasbourg for the first time. It's a Christmas lover's paradise. I'll save the details for a future post, but if you love Christmas, I highly recommend that you visit Strasbourg and the surrounding small towns of Alsace in December

Well, that's all from me tonight. Big Christmas hugs from France!

FONTastique