EverydayFrench – Ep. 7 : C'est Noël !

Welcome everyone to this seventh episode already of Everyday French, a podcast to help you listen to natural French.

This week I decided to talk to you about Christmas, since today is December 23rd and Christmas starts tomorrow. So I'm going to explain a little bit about what we do in France to celebrate Christmas.

Let's go!

In France we celebrate over two days — we celebrate on December 24th, what we call Christmas Eve, and we celebrate on December 25th, Christmas Day. How this holiday is organized depends a bit on each family. Some families like to open presents on December 24th, for example, and others prefer to open them on the morning of the 25th. In my family, for example, we've always celebrated on the morning of the 25th, since traditionally we say Santa Claus comes during the night and delivers the presents on the morning of the 25th. But some families prefer to open presents on the 24th, so they come up with an excuse, telling the kids that between the main course and dessert, Santa came by and left the presents under the tree. Either way, whether you prefer opening presents on the 24th or the 25th, it's roughly the same thing — we celebrate on the evening of the 24th with a family meal, and we also celebrate on the 25th with a big family meal, since the 25th is a public holiday in France, so we can really celebrate all day.

Generally we start lunch around 11:30am, and we finish — well, it depends on the family — but we often finish around 4, 5, even 6pm. Now, careful, we're not eating non-stop from 11:30 to 6pm — we take breaks, we chat, that's why it takes so long. We generally start with an aperitif — depends on the person, but you might have champagne, wine, stronger spirits. We usually have little snacks like chips, little canapés, and then we move on to the starter. So already a good hour can go by before we actually start the starter. Traditionally, the starter is more likely to be foie gras or oysters. After the starter, we have the main course — generally we make a Christmas capon, meaning stuffed turkey basically, served with potatoes or chestnuts. Then, to take a break because we've already eaten a lot, we'll usually have a little salad with cheese. For those who like it, they can follow up with coffee. And finally we finish with the yule log and Christmas chocolates. I'll admit that by the time we get to that point in the meal, none of us are hungry anymore, our stomachs are enormous. But the yule log is so satisfying, so good, that nobody can help taking a little piece and tasting it — even with the Christmas chocolates, generally you just can't help taking one even if you're really not hungry anymore. And often, after the meal, we don't eat dinner that evening — it's rare that we eat. If we've been smart, maybe we've prepared a little soup to eat light. And if the quantities have also been a bit too generous, it's possible to keep eating the Christmas leftovers on the 26th, 27th, maybe even the 28th of December, to finish up the food that wasn't eaten, to avoid wasting it.

So what about you? Do you celebrate Christmas? Does your country have a tradition for the Christmas meal? I'd love to know.

So feel free to write it in the comments, and I'll see you next week for a new episode.

See you soon!