Well it’s been one heaven of a Christmas! I’ll start with the photos:
The sixth photo is Roland, the Grandad who stays at the house for Christmas. It’s hilarious how he smokes his cigars inside the house (very French). I don’t really understand anything he says though!
Everyone in this family laughs lots (I think it's very French!) but Odile laughs the most. There are lots more words for the different types of laughter in French than there are in English -I think that in itself says something! Fou rire means to laugh without being able to stop, and Odile does this lots!
We watched a video from someone's birthday (it was in Summer -very different - which makes me want to visit again in Summer!) where they had had a concours (competition) for the meal where everyone had prepared a different apperetif (appetizer, normally in delicate little glasses like shot glasses with miniature spoons) and Benoit had made one in normal size glasses, with cold porridge and munched cucumber, and it had been disgusting! Watching them all laughing was hilarious, and set everyone off again! I'm definitely still the stupid exchange student (!) so I'm not sure if it's just with me, but the same jokes tend to get brought up again and again!
Marion and David, who arrived last, also brought a massive crate of pates, confits, nuts and the ultimate dish of Christmas for the French, which we had with onion jam (but you can also have it with fig jam) and gingerbread: Foie Gras. They also brought a ginormous loaf of bread for eating with the other things.
We decorate the table for Christmas, and play games and do sketches in between the courses. As you can probably tell, the Brousses are very dramatic, and it's quite a sight when all of them, plus their exuberant other halves, are all together under one roof! Here Anna and me are making roses out of serviettes.
This is a picture during our Christmas meal (which started at 4pm, like most of our lunches, by the way!) which is mostly for my family to see a bit more of the house. The children had made a poem for Odile, and they stood in a line with their backs to us and turned around one by one and read a line (not at all out of the ordinary in this house, little performances like this!)
For the Christmas meal we had a chapon (like a giant rooster) which was great, until Nicholas took the head (which had been left on, with beak, feathers, eyes and all) and started waving it around, then picking it apart to find the soft bits of meat!And music.. (I gave them a CD of NZ music and it is radical listening to all my favourite NZ artists while eating and playing games together in French!) And there's still the odd moment when I have been blogging, or skyping someone in English, and then I randomly will ask someone a question in English!
This is Shalom (it means Peace in Hebrew). I'm not actually sure if she is their only cat, because there are always the neighbour's cats that seem to live in the kitchen aswell! She eats almost as much as us and we often find her on the bench eating the leftovers, and sometimes even the dinner!
Boxing Day we went for a walk in the countryside.
And... yeah.
Me, Claire, Anna, Benoit and Didier.