Joyeux Noel

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! This year's Christmas was very different for us, spending it with the members in Perigueux, but it was formidable ( in French this means fabulous ). Being away from family, Kyle and I decided to start some of our own traditions. We made a great big Christmas Eve breakfast together. They don't have bacon here but I found something similar called "poitrine" (I looked it up on the internet and I think it is pork...). It was good but had a little too much fat for me. We found an internet site with a bunch of Christmas cartoons including the classics like "Charlie Brown," "Rudolph," and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." Growing up I remember watching these shows with my siblings and I love it! They never get old. Another tradition we started this year was reading about Christ's birth in the New Testament and Book of Mormon. I think in past Christmases I've gotten lost in the gift giving. Don't get me wrong I think it's still an important part of Christmas but this year I wasn't so busy buying gifts for everyone that I had more time to think about what gift I could give my Savior. Christmas morning I decided I was going to start a tradition of making cinnamon rolls or sweet rolls every year (like my mom). The only thing they were missing was frosting--most recipes I found required powdered sugar or cream cheese which I haven't found here yet. All in all I think this Christmas will be one I look back on for the rest of my life.

So Christmas Eve we had dinner with the Donadier Family. They have 4 boys, ages ranging from 12-19 and they absolutely adore Kyle. The youngest boy (Remy) tells us every week at church that we aren't allowed to leave France. We have a lot of fun with this family. They are probably one of the strongest families in the ward. Sister Donadier (Martine) made a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner for us. The first course consisted of  caviar, a myraid of tropical fruit and cheese. The second course was a shrimp cocktail salad with avocato, cucumber, radishes and a white sauce--very interesting. Poor Kyle dislikes seafood but he managed to swallow a couple bites; I was very proud of him. Next up was escargo...

They were huge! And actually tasted pretty okay after getting over how the texture felt. I ate 3, Kyle ate 9, and Mattieu ate 19--sheesh, good for you kid. Now for the main course: chicken stuffed with cheese, cooked carrots and potatoes, roasted chestnuts and something that resembled bacon. Boy was I sure stuffed after! We've found that when we are invited for a meal at a French person's house, you are eating for the entire three hours. We had to learn how to pace ourselves because sometimes each course could be one meal in itself. After dinner we played games before jumping into dessert.

12: 02 A.M. Midnight Mass. Christmas morning. Was it worth getting to bed at 2:00 A.M.? And I thought my family got up early to open presents at 6:00 A.M.

I took some pictures from our seats (pretty inconspicuously I might add as not to offend anyone) and probably shouldn't have but even got a shot of the priest himself. Kyle and I counted and we guessed there were between 800-1000 people at Midnight Mass in the famous St. Front Cathedral of Perigueux. It was so cold inside we could see our breath! I felt like the priest repeated himself a lot, but it was in French so I could be wrong...

Christmas morning we were excited because we had some small gifts to open from our families. That afternoon we ate lunch with a member family and later that evening had the missionaries over at our apartment to skype their families. Then went back to the member's home because they invited us to watch a movie. Christmas weekend + mountain-sized portions of food = pass out on bed for 12 hours.