Christmas in France

We spent this Christmas with all of my family in France. My mom's 60th birthday is coming up in February and she wanted us to all take a vacation together. We talked her into Christmas somewhere fun. And oh, the place I found. We went to Alsace, France the self-proclaimed Christmas capitol of Europe.

It is truly a magical place. We rented a house in Riquewihr an walled city about 500 years old. 

However, the getting to the house was done in true Reynolds style.

We all (minus the Danley's) flew from JFK to Madrid, only to be told that we had a 3 hour delay. (There was a lot of snow in London and flights were being diverted to Paris.)

 

We knew the delay would cause us to miss our train to Strasbourg, so we called customer service, only to be told it was no problem. But when we got to the train station, we were told that we had to buy all new tickets. Plus the Danley's were nowhere in sight.

 Carter did get to ride his all time favorite train. The TGV (train a grande vitesse) is the fastest commuter train in the world. He had a train book when he was 2 that told all about it, and he would ask every day when we could go on the TGV. One dream come true!

We arrived in Strasbourg only to find that the rental car company was closed. We decided to take taxis to Riquewihr to the tune of $200 a piece. Still no Danleys....

The next morning they emailed that they had stayed in Strasbourg and all the men had to return by taxi to pick up the cars. While the rest of us got to explore our town. Pretty cute, huh?

 Day 2 took the boys to the Swiss Alps to go skiing.

 It took the rest of us to Strasbourg to enjoy the Christmas markets and the ambience.

 

Jason had my camera so our pics of Strasbourg are few and lame.

The next day we went to Colmar to do more of the same.

The next day was Christmas Eve and we drove to Obernai to do some last minute shopping for each other. We ate really good Alsatian food and it started to snow.

Keaton had his pal "Rosco" with him everywhere.

   
We did all kinds of Christmas preparations. The kids watched Christmas movies that Kari made for them. We went shopping for food and more gift wrap. We decorated men's tube socks for stockings and finished up decorating the house with a new nativity, colored paper snowflakes, rag garlands, and winter scenes the kids made. It was darling.
That evening before dinner we went out to do a little caroling in the town, only to find a brass octet and a men's choir taking turns entertaining the church goers. It was gently snowing and one of the most enchanting things I have ever experienced. We then walked around the snowy town singing to the delight of many a passerby.

We opened Christmas Eve jammies, hung our stockings and went to bed. Santa brought the kids lots of small toys and then we went out to walk in our little village.

 

 Keaton had a block of snow he wouldn't put down. We all had to take turns carrying it for him.

Merry Christmas to all our friends and Family.