Holidays in the french capital may not be snowy white, but it’s hard to not be full with xmas cheer if you’re in the french capital in December. The City of Lights lives up to its title in a big way, as the trees that surround the Champs-Elysées are surrounded by the numerous plants in Paris that get covered with strings of light, and the Eiffel Tower regularly gets the focal place of the nighttime skyline with its gleaming light.
In fact, viewing the xmas illumination in Paris is one of the best things to do when you’re visiting the city in December. The best places to go to check out the Paris xmas illumination are along the aforesaid Champs-Elysées, the length of the Rue Montorgueil and Rue Mouffetard, in the Place Vendome, in the windows of the big department stores (including the renowned Galeries Lafayette), and at the Notre Dame Cathedral. It’s at Notre Dame that you’ll also get to have a look at Paris’ Christmas tree, and even if you’re not a religious person you might do worse than to be present at a Christmas Eve ritual in the well-known church. You can reach all of these sights from Appartment in Paris
A different Christmas tradition in Paris is the short-term ice skating rinks that get arranged around the city. The locations every year might differ, but there are frequently rinks built in the open area close to the Paris City Hall, also known as the Hotel de Ville, and near Montparnasse. They tend to go up in mid-December and stay open through March, so even if you’re visiting the french capital past Christmas you can still take a spin. Generally speaking, to go ice skating in Paris on these short-term rinks won’t cost you anything, but if you have to rent the ice skates that’ll be a few euro.
Attending a ritual in one of Paris’ numerous churches can be a really amazing way to spend Christmas Eve, even if you’re not a super-religious person at home. And you don’t even have to speak French to get the most out of a ceremony - there are quite a lot of English-language ceremonies around the city you can enter into. Unluckily, the homepage for the Catholic churches of Paris appears to be completely in French - so you may need some assistance from a French-speaking colleague to translate it and find the English ceremonies, or you could just ask the Paris tourism office or in your Hotel in Paris when you arrive in the city. Additionally to attending Christmas ceremony in Paris’ churches, you may additionally want to do a expedition|visit} of the churches during non-service times in order to see the many nativity scenes they’ve erected for the time of year.
Christmas in the french capital, as well as the rest of France, tends to be a family celebration - which means that rather than dining out and celebrations with friends, Parisians are more likely to be having big meals in familiar apartments with family and partying in private. Nevertheless, for a traveler, the french capital at Christmastime can still be dreamlike - there’s a feeling of calm that you may not find in Paris at any other time of year (though don’t imagine the streets will be cast off or anything), and there’s something about the manner a city feels when it’s preparing for a family celebration that makes it feel cozy… No matter what the temperature is outside.
