Christmas day @ La Giraudiere – Christmas day was two days after the La Giraudiere Christmas market had finished. What a challenge yes 2 days after finishing the market and clearing all or nearly all our next challenge was to prepare the old house for a traditional Christmas day with a traditional Christmas dinner and there were 20 guests oh la la.

The French Christmas is normally spent with family on the evening of the 24th unlike the traditional Christmas of the UK which is a morning of opening presents followed by a traditional festive Lunch followed by some mince pies and an evening playing games and music. A traditional English / French Christmas dinner was planned for Christmas day with all the usual trimmings. The pool table was set up and there was a dart board mounted on the new walls and Max, a friend of Paul, kindly lean’t us a poker table and equipment.

We had the help of a professional chef and friend of La Giraudiere – Stephanie – for this dinner. With the shopping list on hand, we spent the entire morning of Christmas’s Eve shopping, or rather battling the madness at the supermarkets. Food preparation took up the entire afternoon, hence all we did for Christmas’s eve was a simple & cosy dinner by the telly and a wood burner.

The Christmas Day Menu a la Giraudiere

So Christmas day started in a good old fashioned manner – a trip to the village church for the Christmas mass around 11am whilst Paul found some large logs from his wood store which only just fitted into La Giraudiere’s huge chimney and even more were put aside for later to give a real festive feel to the old house.

I was glad I had that hour of peacefulness for it was straight dive into dinner preparation for Stephanie was in the kitchen when we returned after mass. Almost immediately, everyone went straight to work without even having the chance to dry ourselves from the walk in the rain! Boiling the vegetables, cooking the sauce, washing the pans, setting the tables, cutting the bread – the whole place was soon bustling with activities!on, guests, friends and neighbors consisting of a good mix of French and English, started to arrive and the old house was filled with cheers of warm welcome and chit chatting. The dinner kicked off with aperitif at 2pm, a rather odd timing for dinner but it was a 7 course dinner and would last for hours like true French dining with the one best exception we had Christmas Pudding.

It was raining sporadically through the day but it  did not spoil the fun. The rest of day was spent enjoying the feast and in games of darts, poker, billiard and of course, good wine and company.

more photos here – http://youtu.be/aMQaxoUOHHk

and here at the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/

Things quieten down a lot after Christmas and that gave us time to visit the Charente area – The charming medieval city Pons, beautiful château and river at Jonzac, the Christmas market of Riberac, the alluring underground churches at Aubeterrre, the comic city Angoulême and Cognac, place where the famous drink is named after.

We also spent some time reinstating the place to its original neatness and even got loads of laundry done despite the rainy weather so as to ready the place for the new batch of volunteers.

New Year Eve’s was spent at the local clubhouse near the lake, nothing fancy but definitely an interesting way to welcome the New Year amongst the English and French. We have a dinner invitation on New Year’s Day at a Scottish’s couple; whom I affectionately know them Mr. and Mrs Cake from her lovely gateau and mince pies.

Today is my last day of my three weeks stay at La Giraudiere, I am from Singapore and return tomorow during my stay I have learnt many things including

• to wear my socks first before my pants
• to type on French keyboard
• to cook rice on gas stove
• to appreciate weather reports
• to play billiards and poker
• that I can be excited over rainbows and starry skies
• that genuine teamwork and community spirit do exists
• that winter may be freezing with the rain and icy wind but one does not feel the cold at La Giraudiere, for you get the warmth of good spirited people around – “Thank you La Giraudiere for a Christmas to remember”.

à santé,

Jacqueline

03.01.2014