… a real 8-footer, and thank goodness for “Christmas with Dino”.
This year (2024) is the first year I will spend Christmas in my home in France post-barn conversion. Prior to this, I really didn’t have a lot of room for Christmas in the tiny sitting room of the Before Times.
I didn’t move permanently to this home until Summer 2023. The following winter, I was in the States avoiding the noise and debris that comes with opening new doorways in stone walls (and the resulting drafts). I did put up a small garland last December just to have something cheery to come home to. The years prior to that, this was my second home, and I only spent one Christmas here – 2020.
CHRISTMASES PAST – The Marseille Years
Before we get to the focus of this blog, let’s review my Christmases living in Marseille, France during The Pandemic Times: 2020 and 2021.
2020 – The year of Pandemic Lockdowns. That Christmas, I was able to spend Christmas in the house I am currently living in because we were allowed to travel within France, but not yet out of the country unless it was an emergency. I think I remember this being the position of my employer, not the French government, but it’s all a little fuzzy now and I really don’t want to revisit it in detail.
2021 – The world was still trying to figure itself out. I was supposed to be working in Marseille, but it was cancelled at the very last minute, again due to ongoing remnants from the Pandemic Times. I stayed in Marseille that year with my very sick cat, who crossed the rainbow bridge about three weeks later.
All-in-all, it was a pretty rough time. The apartment I rented at the time was miserable and in very poor shape. The wind would howl through the huge exposed glass windows that were original from 1968, and it was on a horribly busy traffic circle right above a metro access and a Burger King with Deliveroo drivers all standing around yelling, smoking, and arguing until the wee hours. One night during lockdowns, a man was on the street underneath my window, drunk at 3 am, singing the call to prayer. That was all kinds of wrong, right there, and resulted in even less sleep than I normally would get in that place.
As you can probably understand, I didn’t get a tree or really decorate much at all in 2021. First it was because I thought I was going to be working out of town, and then I just wanted to be with my very devoted cat as much as possible. Plus, I didn’t have a car, so even if I knew where to get a tree, how would I get it to my apartment?
There were a couple of bright spots. I did go to a friend’s one evening and decorated the tree with her and her boys. That was also the year we delivered homemade cookies and toys to an orphanage.
I am pretty sure I also set up my small Moroccan nativity set.
CHRISTMAS 2022 – Things were looking up.
The year 2022 was the year I really figured out Christmas in France, and more specifically, Christmas in a city when you have to source, transport, and then get an 8-foot tree up a narrow elliptical staircase to a 3rd floor (2ème étage) apartment with an elevator barely large enough for two suitcases.
Let’s back up a smidge. By this point, I had moved to a beautiful turn-of-the century apartment without drunks under my windows, and without windows that felt like they would shatter in the next Mistral. But my new abode didn’t have underground parking or a cargo elevator like my old crappy one had. Win some, lose some. This was definitely a big win for my health and sanity.
In fact, when I moved in (and out) of that beautiful old apartment building a few months before Christmas 2022, the furniture had to come in through the window.
Christmas 2022 was the last one of 20 years on the job, and close to 40 years of working or having duty during the holidays. As luck would have it, I was also on duty for the two weeks before Christmas through New Year’s day of that, my 20th and last year before retirement.
But instead of letting it suck, I embraced being home in a beautiful Beaux Arts style apartment by bringing in some Christmas cheer and celebrating the good fortune of a new apartment and good health.
MY FIRST CHRISTMAS TREE IN FRANCE – 2022
… a real 8-footer, and thank goodness for “Christmas with Dino”.
This story starts as most do – with the unfortunate bit. It was December 3rd, 2022, the second day without hot water in my apartment, and I was out of both milk for coffee and orange juice for my daily little cup of sunshine. Yes, a triple whammy, and there were storm warnings to boot.
Fortunately, there was a shower at my office at work. If you don’t know Marseille, it is a very densely populated ancient port city on the Mediterranean Sea with over 300 days of sunshine a year.
Well, that day – the day I needed to go to the office to have a shower – was not one of those days. I would usually walk or take the bus to work, but on that day (of course on that day) it was pouring down rain, so I decided to drive rather than wait at a bus stop or get drenched with big fat raindrops.
People are discourteous drivers in Marseille without rain, and many of the streets are narrow and one-way. Often it would take me longer to drive than walk or take the bus. But I took my chances that driving would get me there almost as quickly (and certainly drier) than walking the 1.4 miles (2.3 km) or taking public transportation.
Also, I was schlepping what felt like half my bathroom in a beach bag.
That day was the first Saturday of December and the day I had planned to get my Christmas tree. So, trudge to the car parked in the garage a half-block away, drive to work in the rain, and shower done, I left everything at the office, anticipating my hot water would not be restored for at least a few more days.
After I returned to my neighborhood (quartier) and parked the car back in the garage, I took a two-block detour on foot to check out the Christmas trees on offer at the little neighborhood plant kiosk. I had bought from this little green kiosk on several occasions and was very happy with the products and service.
They are nice guys who routinely delivered large shrubs for my terrace on foot. The convenience couldn’t be beat with this little place, especially before I had a car.
Now is a good time to mention that I also had just bought a used car about two months prior to the events in question, so the concept of having a car of my own in the big city was still sort of new to me. I got used to rental cars for big weekend shops, but not for anything this big.
SO THAT’S A “NO” FOR ME
On this occasion, however, I decided against purchasing from them for two simple reasons:
- They only had a few trees, and the one that might have been suitable for my place was a whopping 150 bucks. I mean, come on! I know it’s the middle of the city, but those are fresh-Christmas-tree-in-Singapore prices; and
- They only take cash. I didn’t carry around that much cash in Marseille, the kiosk is closed on Sundays, and I wasn’t in the mood to walk home and back again, then back home a second time in the rain.
So, no. Just no.
I was disappointed, but undeterred. Christmas would come in 2022.
To misquote Scarlett O’Hara, “if I have to lie, steal, cheat, or beg”, I swore Christmas would come that year. I wouldn’t really do those things, but that didn’t stop me from channeling a less desperate version of Miss Scarlett anyway.
Well, that was that. I was clean and mostly dry and was really afraid I might melt like brown sugar in the rain. I decided to regroup, so I went home, made some popcorn, and watched a little Pride & Prejudice, the BBC version.
AFTER THE RAIN
The following day, December 4th, the rains paused, and I suddenly remembered that for the first Christmas since living in France, I had a car. Not just any car – a station wagon! Too big to park most places in Marseille, but big enough to haul a tree!
I promptly drove to my favorite garden center, to which I had driven lots of times in a rental car, which makes me unsure about why I had such a huge revelation about having my own car that morning.
Anyhow, once there, I learned two huge things:
- A garden center (jardinerie), like a Truffaut, Delbard, Marius Ferrat, is the place to find loads of beautiful trees grown in France, at half the price of the same trees at the kiosk; and
- Loyalty pays. I got a 15-euro discount (remise), because, you see, I have a slight houseplant and houseplant accessory purchasing affliction that earned me a lot of points towards discounts.
THE PREFERRED CHRISTMAS TREE IN FRANCE
“Hello, 8-foot Nordmann Fir!”, with a longevity score of 9 on a scale of 10!
It was such a good deal, I would have attempted a taller one, but I had a tiny elevator, a really old staircase, and I’m only one little person. Plus, I don’t think the petite salon would have handled any increase in diameter anyway, never mind getting it into the wagon.
For those who don’t know, a cut Christmas tree in France (sapin de Noël) often comes on a stand that is basically a fir log (bûche de sapin) with a hole bored into it, which you can then remove on your own with a good sledgehammer if you so choose. Or so said the nice kid at the tree lot.
It must have registered on my face that I really was not set up for hammering a log off a tree trunk in my 2ème étage walk-up, because the kid offered to do it for me, and (bonus!) I could still take the little log (bûche) with me.
The whole tree fit safely in the station wagon, with the end of the trunk nestled to my right on the center console and a teeny little bending of the top to tuck it into the tail gate. Presto! All the doors firmly closed with no red flag on back needed, the little bûche resting safely in the passenger seat all the way home.
I was also able to handle the tree myself. I only had to haul it from the car double-parked on the street, through the approximately 200-pound auto-closing door to the building while balancing on the two steps up from the sidewalk, through the vestibule and up five steps, then through the second set of auto-closing doors and up two flights of the elliptical stairs, to my front door, and into the front room.
Fortunately, the front door was actually a double-size, so angling the tree through the door was the easy bit.
After that, it was just a matter of bringing all of the decorations from the cellar to the ground floor, and chasing the tiny elevator loaded with those bins up the stairs three times, set up the tree, and my-oh-my was it gorgeous! I mean, I’ve never seen a tree like that in the Western United States, and certainly not for only 80 bucks (with the 15 off of course).
It was only after pulling every box up from the cellar and those three trips in the elevator that I realized all my lights – miles and miles of them – were 110v and therefore in storage in the States. “Ah well,” I said to the tree, “I’m going to need compatible ones next year and the year after that, too!”
“For next year, I shall be retired to my little house in France.”
me – December 4th, 2022
Fortunately, my apartment was literally around the city block from a hardware store. I grabbed my wheelie cart and headphones, put some “Christmas with Dino” on repeat, and headed out to start my new 220v Christmas Kit with the purchase of some LED tree lights in warm white (blanc chaud).
And so began making my very own Christmases in France.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
This brings me to the last two things I learned on that day :
- An 8-foot Nordmann Fir (really 7’8” without the bûche) is still too short in an apartment with 13’ ceilings;
- You can do anything with a little Dean Martin for company. Or maybe in my case, it’s the bioidentical hormones. Either way, I actually did a little hop of happiness while giggling over my first Christmas tree in France.
A happy and joyous 2024 Holiday Season to you all!
Joyeux Noël et Bonnes Fêtes !
If you have any questions about my journey, feel free to leave them in the comments. Or you can email me at contact@intheshadowofachateau.com
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