Christmas With Our French Family

The Marguerittes have definitely made us feel at home. Their home is large, yet it feels cozy. A tall wooden tree stands between their living room and dining room. Lights connected to the banister hang across the living room. A smaller traditional tree sits on top of a wine barrel in the corner of the dining room. The nativity scene is spread across the china hutch. Pottery created by Jean Marie is interspersed amongst the decor. Family photos hang on the walls. Their family love is spread throughout their home. 

Elise decorated this tree.

The family tree stands proudly and can be seen from the living room and dining room.

Gene, Elena, and I arrived in their small village of Redessan on December 23rd. I needed to go shopping for tamale ingredients because Cécile requested this tradition to be shared with her family. Everybody seemed excited about sharing this tradition with us, too. The cool thing was that the Margueritte's have a very long wooden table that was made by Jean Marie’s dad. It was the perfect prep table because everybody could gather around and help. The idea of preparing a traditional dish of ours on a part of Margueritte history was very special to me. They discovered that the tamale making process took a lot longer than they thought. Everybody did a fabulous job of pitching in and we ended up making eight and a half dozen tamales. I made sure not to make them spicy because French food is not spicy. For the most part, I think everybody appreciated this new experience. 

The Marguerittes made sure there was no shortage of food. Christine prepared her scrumptious orange salad and Jean Marie insisted on making his traditional oysters. Elise made tasty aperitifs with puff pastry dough. Adeline and Cécile cooked pasta with an onion sauce and sausages. Simon made his family’s vegetable lasagna with a béchamel sauce. Adeline’s good friends, Mano and Hugo, brought vegetable tarts made with pumpkin and butternut squash. Mano also made some delicious stuffed mushrooms. There was a lot more, but you all would be reading for days if I talked about everything we ate.