Nathalie's Festive Thoughts

Christmas is upon us again , the tree is up and decorated, the presents are starting to pile up under it and the ‘Place de Ville’ in Ruffec is starting to look like a winter wonderland. Great for us this year seeing  that we are situated just opposite.

I love Christmas I still get exited every year about the glitters, the presents and the excess of food. I am not a religious person so Christmas for me is a celebration of mid-winter based probably on pagan rituals.

Let’s face it, it's a period when, frankly, everyone needs cheering up. The dark days, the colder weather, (although this year again it is very mild in our lovely Charente) could be lightened with feasts and decorations to mark the return of the light after the longest night of winter solstice. Celebrations of the lighter days to come and nature’s continuing cycle have been common throughout cultures and history with feasts, festivals and holidays around the December Solstice.

As a child, the ritual of Christmas was very important to me, I still associate to this day the smell of satsumas with Christmas because  I used to get a bag of chocolates and some  satsumas on the last day of school before the December holidays. Decorating the tree with my brother and sister, preparing food for the ‘Reveillon’ with my mother and looking forward to eating the ‘Buche de Noël’.

‘La Buche de Noël’ , nowadays a mouthwatering patisserie which is eaten on Christmas eve and on Christmas day is another French tradition which derives from very ancient pagan rituals. This delicate butter cream gâteau replaces the wood log which was traditionally burnt around Christmas by French peasants. A big log was brought into the house and would burn throughout the night, the ashes were then collected and either scattered on the fields as fertilizer every night until Twelfth Night or kept as a charm.

Eating « la dinde aux marrons » (turkey with chestnut stuffing), foie gras, cailles aux raisins (stuffed quails with raisins), seafood and drinking champagne  are the pleasures I look forward to at Christmas but it is also a time to spend time with loved ones and friends and enjoy a rest. I always take the time to reflect on the coming year coming and end and what has been achieved in our lives. 2015 has been a great year for the agency and we have come a long way since our days in Rue de L’Hôpital. We have changed our image last year, changed our office this year and we are pleased to see a real increase of sale and a buoyant property market.

Have a very happy Christmas everybody.