It has been so cold this weekend and am very thankful for central heating! I really had no idea that it got this cold in the south of France. It got to a high of 4oC today! It does make it feel very Christmassy and all the decorations of Santa skiing and snowmen do make a lot of sense here! Am also looking forward to not having to wait until 10pm to go and look at Christmas lights - it is dark at 5.30pm.

The 1st of December is the unofficial day in France when you buy the tree and decorations and spend the weekend decorating it. This goes for the streets and malls too. So we have gone from just a few decorations for sale in shops to full on Christmas decorations everywhere - really lovely.

So today after church we decided to get a real tree from Truffet garden centre - it is open Sunday which is a rareity in France. We chose our tree just like in the movies and they wrapped it in a netting tube then took it home. I didn't bring any decorations with me but have managed to get some lovely ones here. The decorations are also different with the nativity being very traditional and you can buy lovely sets everywhere really cheap. We had a great afternoon decorating the tree and as some of our NZ post has already arrived we were able to put some pressies under the tree.






On Friday our tv died so yesterday after dropping jasper at a party we went to a mall in search of a new one. We were ignored completely in one shop. A shop assistant would head towards us then as soon as they heard us speak English would make a hasty retreat. So we tried another place and were heading out the door to do our research at home and deliberate over which brand was better when a shop assistant came and asked us if he could help. We asked about a couple of TVs then showed us a Samsung and told us it was a good deal so we bought it. It's so nice when someone makes an effort and we really couldn't be bothered taking the chance another day that someone could speak English so made a bit of a rash buy. So far so good though.

After the party some friends came back to our place for dinner which was great. So nice to be making connections with people. We still have our neighbors to meet but maybe this week...

My plan for this week is to get some Christmas shopping done and to try and find ingredients for a Christmas cake - harder then you would think. I managed to buy one for myself from the English Christmas fair but want to make a gluten free one. Also have some fruit mince so need to make fruit mince pies.

Penelope is all better but I now have a sore throat so hopefully that clears and no one else gets sick and we can start preparing for Christmas!


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Location:Putting up the tree