The Xmas Holiday Arrives

Last year's holiday displays and festivities were nearly non-existent here. This year, we started seeing small quantities of Christmas decor and tasty treats in the shops in late October. They don't really celebrate Halloween much here. By the beginning of November, holiday stuff was all around and then it took over large footprints in the shops. This is a November photo.

By early December, the chocolate section was enormous! The holiday merchandise might even surpass the merchandise displays we saw at Ramadan. Probably not!

I stood in the middle and shot to the left, then the middle and then to the right. The first 2 photos overlap on the large blue stack.

The second and third photos overlap on the green tower and gold stacks of boxes.

And the merchandise continued off to the right.

This surprised me. Fireworks "fountains" and sparkler "candles" for cakes along with lighters. These seem like something that shouldn't be used indoors for sure but...

Two closeups of truffle-type chocolates.

These boxes were really pretty- all dark chocolate.

And they even had very small, live trees in the large grocery store.  They were very wide and very short.

B decided we needed to get a small artificial Christmas tree. There  is a long story in the blog posts about how we ended up with two large artificial trees in Indonesia, but we sold them when we left. He'd received an email from our garden center about a very large Christmas selection. We got a small tree and one string of LED lights. The very top of the tree hits 5 ft. We had kept some ornaments, mostly purchased in or made in Indonesia so we had some things to hang on the tree.  I'd made these three ornaments back in 2018 (front and back of each is pictured) and really like them. We hadn't had a tree in a couple of years so it was nice to get them out of their box.

Ta da! Our tree for 2021.

The garden center had these cute signs.

And soooooooo many types of village and navitity items. These old European buildings were the most interesting.

They did have a very large decorated tree in the large square near us last year but not much else in terms of exterior Christmas decor.

This year, the more usual amount of additional items appeared, along with a ferris wheel- the Grand Roue Panaramique. Check out B hiding behind the sign!

A village for the kids to roam through.

A Disney window display in Galleries Lafayette.

Christmas Markets are back this year as well including a small one here in town. We did go. They were checking for proof of vaccination or negative Covid test to get into the outdoor, but cramped area. However, few folks were wearing masks. I did buy another very large soft, squishy scarf to wear. We also picked up a Thai spice blend. There was someone selling very intricately, laser cut 3D puzzles that you build and then they also have movement. For example, they sell a clock, an award for cycling with a cyclist peddling on top and also a nightlight with fish swimming around. Expensive!  

Naturally, this is most impressive at night when it's all lit up. So, one morning-- 6:30 am-- we walked over to enjoy everything still lit up. They don't leave the ferris wheel lit up all night. There are different types of light decorations on every street near our apartment.

I shot a video so I am trying to imbed it here. It might not work.

We also had our first snow in town. We just had flurries throughout most of the day and none of it stuck. The higher elevations saw much more. 

Really cool clouds, too.