Holidays in the french capital may not be snowy white, but it’s hard to not be full with holiday optimism if you’re in the french capital in December. The City of Lights lives up to its nickname in a huge way, as the trees that surround the Champs-Elysées are among the many plants in Paris that get covered with strings of light, and the Eiffel Tower frequently becomes the central point of the nocturnal skyline with its gleaming light.

Actually, looking at the holiday illumination in Paris is one of the first stuff to do when you’re visiting the town in December. The greatest places to go to explore the Paris holiday illumination are along the aforementioned Champs-Elysées, the length of the Rue Montorgueil and Rue Mouffetard, in the Place Vendome, in the windows of the big department stores (including the renowned Galeries Lafayette), and at the Notre Dame Cathedral. It’s at Notre Dame that you’ll additionally get to have a look at Paris’ Christmas tree, and even if you’re not a religious character you can do worse than to go to a Christmas Eve service in the recognized church. You can reach all of these sights from Appartment in Paris

A different Christmas ritual in Paris is the impermanent ice skating rinks that get set up throughout the town. The venues each year can differ, but there are habitually rinks put up in the square by the Paris City Hall, also known as the Hotel de Ville, and near Montparnasse. They are likely to go up in mid-December and stay open through March, so even if you’re visiting the french capital later than Christmas you can however take a spin. Generally speaking, to go ice skating in Paris on these impermanent rinks won’t cost you anything, but if you need to rent the ice skates that’ll be some euro.

Attending a service in one of Paris’ many churches can be a really wonderful method to spend Christmas Eve, even if you’re not a super-religious character at home. And you don’t even have to talk French to get the most out of a mass – there are several English-speeking ceremonies throughout the town you can join in. Unfortunately, the website for the Catholic churches of Paris appears to be completely in French – so you may need some assistance from a French-native tongue buddy to translate it and locate the English ceremonies, or you could just ask the Paris tourism office or in your Hotel in Paris when you arrive in the town. Besides to attending Christmas ceremony in Paris’ churches, you may additionally like to make a visit of the churches during non-service times in order to see the many nativity scenes they’ve erected for the time of year.

Christmas in the french capital, as well as the rest of France, tends to be a family holiday – which means that rather than dining out and celebrations with friends, Parisians are more likely to be having big meals in cozy apartments with relatives and partying privately. Nevertheless, for a traveler, the french capital at Christmastime can still be dreamlike – there’s a sense of silence that you may not find in Paris at any other time of year (though don’t assume the streets will be abandoned or anything), and there’s something about the manner a town feels when it’s preparing for a family holiday that makes it feel warm… No matter what the temperature is outside.

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