I Love French Christmas Decorations
They aren’t limited in any way by materials or colors. Purple and black are probably more common than red and green. Here are a few of my favorites. 
Andrus Foe Paws
Adventures in Paris
Martians at the Louvre?
I went for a walk in early December in the Tuilliaries garden. Couldn’t figure out what this guy was doing there. He stayed for quite some time but must have flown back to Mars. Haven’t seen him for a while now.
Christmas Decorations part 3
Holly’s effort at a “tree.”
Abi’s “tree”
Not exactly red and white but gorgeous
The French decorate with white and red “twigs.” After Joe broke this pitcher by catching his coat on a twig as he was leaving we put the twigs in a larger vase with red confetti…and moved it away from the door.
A creative use for leftovers. 🙂
We did a few other things to decorate. Drawing on her experience at Treasures, Julie made some great bows that we attached to the lighting fixtures over the fireplaces… We will use them next year. We bought a four inch tall poinsetta for 7 Euros. We checked out the larger ones that you can buy at Costco for $10…they cost 49 Euros here. Guess it has something to do with the geographic location of Mexico :). We decided to do without.
Decorating for Christmas part 2
Thank goodness for IKEA bags!
After we made wreaths we were pumped to go try to find things to decorate with. Although it is easier to buy American type ornaments in Paris (made in China) they are not common. The instructor gave us hints about where to go to buy supplies and Abi and I spent two days shopping and a couple of days creating.
We bought floral bricks to carve like trees from the instructor and we walked all over looking for foliage to decorate with. Mostly we looked at street type market stalls. It was fun but we walked miles!!!!!!!!!!! and were afraid to get on the metro to come home because we might squish everything. This is Abi carrying her share of the loot.
Moving when the elevator is too small and the stairway too narrow
We just got back from Holland. In Amsterdam, we took a boat tour of the canals. All along the canals we saw hooks mounted to the tops of the front facade of each house. We were told that the stairways were so narrow in these old houses that people moved furniture through the windows using the ropes and hooks to haul stuff up from the street. In Paris they use a pully type system also. Can 
you imagine moving a piano that way?
The Cluny
One of my favorite museums in Paris is The Cluny Museum which is a museum of medievil history. Jen Hansen, Abi and I went there in November. Among the things to see are the Unicorn Tapestries and the heads of the apostles that were chopped off by the mobs during the French Revolution. The apostle’s statues were arrayed around Notre Dame and the revolutionaries thought they were kings…so they chopped off their heads. The heads on the current statues at the cathedral are replicas. The original heads were discovered buried in someone’s back yard and are now displayed at the museum. Here are some pictures from our trip to the museum. For more info see http://www.sacred-destinations.com/france/paris-cluny-museum-of-middle-ages
Art Class in Paris
One of the things I wanted to do when I came to Paris was to take an art class. My grandmother and my mother have some artistic ability as do some of my nieces and nephews so I brought my “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” book, some colored pencils and some drawing paper. I have taken a water color class in the past and was frustrated with my inability to draw. Abi and I joined WICE when we first arrived in Paris. WICE is an established English speaker’s group that offers a variety of classes to the expat community here in Paris.
While I was getting settled, I thought I might meet some new friends at the introductory drawing class that was offered by a woman by the name of Claude Pollack. She actually grew up in NYC where he father was an art dealer. He passed away when she was 16 and her mother moved the family back to France. The people in the class were very nice…one a stewardess who has an apartment here, one a retired US military woman, an Austrailian wife of an International Atomic Energy commission type and a long term resident of Paris from Idaho…who went to Idaho State. The first class was all about perspective…after that, the class wanted to do things like portraits and the still lifes got more and more complicated…which was totally frustrating to me…not fun. The interesting thing is that Abi decided to join the class and she is quite good…see for yourselves…guess all those art classes at Norwood paid off! 
Brita Classique
We are users of the Brita water filtration system. We have a little pitcher in Boston and are religious users. Over the past year, as we have moved kids home from Syracuse and from Vermont, we have collected quite a few extra filters from their pitchers. What better way to use them up than to send them to France. No sense in taking up space to pack the pitcher, but the filters could be useful….
Faux Pas # ?
This is what the “new and improved pitchers look like!
Who knew? The classic filters went home in Abi’s suitcase…
Andrus Foe Paws 