A white Christmas

Not the snowy kind - this is just frost, but it's pretty in the sunshine. Not as much fun as snow, but also, I suspect, not as cold and wet. It was sunny too, clear blue skies forever.



Here's the Christmas tree, before the present-opening frenzy. We had a great day, just the three of us, playing French monopoly and 'SOS Ouistiti', which is balancing game involving sticks and monkeys. We got lots of lovely pressies - Al gave me a rosewood-handled Laguiole pocket knife engraved with my name and 'Aniane, Noel 2006' on the blade, PLUS a beautiful little gold Langedoc cross. I am very spoilt.

A couple of nights ago we did a Christmas dinner with some friends who were heading out for the holidays. There is a tradition here to have 13 desserts ... it sounded too good to miss, so here's our take on the tradition ...


We have, clockwise from left ... a buche de Noel (Yule log), fresh pineapple and orange slices, marzipan fruit, mendiants from the local chocolatier (these count as 5 - as well as the chocolate they contain two types of nut and two types of dried fruit), ginger snaps from Ikea, dates, almond and blueberry tart, and of course, pavlova!

Here is another local Christmas tradition...


The greenery is sprouted lentils. These came out onto our neighbour's windowsill about 3 weeks ago, and we wondered what they were for. Eventually another neighbour told me that sprouting lentil seeds like this ensures plenty of money for the year ahead - the red ribbon appeared on Christmas Eve, and the plate of greens would have decorated the Christmas table today.