Saturday, December 5, 2009

Holiday Customs Of French Life

By Hazel Wig

Holiday traditions in French life do differ from our own in many ways. The French really enjoy and savor the holiday seasons and take time to spend them with loved ones and family.

France has Strong religious Catholic beliefs and Easter is a important holiday for everyone. The bells stop ringing within a three day period up until Easter's when all let out their glorious chimes. Everyone hugs and kisses one another once the chimes are heard all over to show peace and love as well as joy for this special day.

Kids receive eggs of tasty chocolate all over France on Easter morning. These are thought to be given to them from the Flying Bells that chime on Easter morning from the churches as they fly overhead they drop the eggs in yards and homes for the kids to find and search for that day. No cute bunny for them.

France has a glorious Christmas season. Shops and residence are all decked out in holiday cheer. In homes some people still choose to decorate in old world style with candies in delectable arrays and nuts on their trees instead of the more modern glittery and lighted ones others choose to use. Stockings will not be hung by the hearths here, it is shoes instead to be filled by Pere Noel on Christmas Eve.

Most Christmas dinners are done after everyone gets through with the Christmas Eve mass in churches. They settle in with their loved ones and friends for a fantastic feast of roast duck, turkey and so much more including a tantalizing dessert of white pudding.

Bastille Day is celebrated throughout France on the fourteenth of July with parades in the streets and fireworks that go on until the night is well on its way. Townspeople gather to commemorate the mobs of angry people who stormed through this once famous Paris prison and freed the prisoners and towns from the awful things being done there.

It is celebrated on the fourteenth of July and has a vast amount of fireworks throughout the day and night with parades up and down most streets. There is also street dances held and the townspeople celebrated the liberation and freedom of this day in France's history.

French wedding customs are mostly like ours in other countries. One exception is the bottle beheading of a poor little champagne bottle by the groom using a saber specially created for just such an event. This is said to have started with Napoleon's troops playing a game and beheading bottles of booze with their sabers.

The troops would let their women friends throw the bottles into the air as they flew by on their trusty steeds and lopped off the bottles head. The French really know how to throw a party and live life to the fullest.

You will always enjoy the holiday time within the French life there is no doubt about it. The decorations and the peoples true joy in the seasons celebrations bring a true feeling of warmth to your hearts. Spending time with their families and loved ones is what all holidays are about, we should add little of this into our own customs as well. I cannot wait to visit France now during one of these inviting holidays next year how about you?

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