St. Sorlin | macarons & paperbacks

I know this post is a little overdue, but Matt finally started his new job so I have actually been a bit busy getting back into the routine of things and recovering from all the traveling we did last month. But here is how our Christmas went!

Literally 2 days (more like 36 hours) after getting home from our trip to Disney, we were off to spend a week in St. Sorlin with Matt’s family and with our sister-in-law’s family. Depending on how you celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas in the States, Christmas in France is pretty different. Normally, Matt’s family opens their presents on the 24th (my family does it late Christmas morning), but because some of us didn’t arrive until almost 9pm that night, we waited until the 25th. Instead we ate lots of French finger foods (veggies and small pieces of toast with olives, charcuterie, salmon, and foie gras…not my favorite things) and then played a gag gift exchange game that is sort of like Telephone, but you alternate between writing a sentence and drawing a picture to pass on. It was a lot of fun and since there were 11 of us playing, things were pretty crazy. We voted at the end for “best” gag gift, and the one Matt and I picked out won! It was hideous. The two gifts we got placed second, and we kept them because I love them!

Christmas Eve treats

Christmas ice cream logs

Ok, the top is a deer head magnet, and we hung the ugly ornament around the deer’s antlers. It is currently, and proudly, hanging on our fridge!

We didn’t get to bed until around 1am and then–thanks to our 1-year-old niece–we were up before 6:30…yay! By 8am everyone was up and ready to start opening presents, which took up half of the tiny cabin space. My family, since there are only 5 of us, each take turns opening a present so that everyone can see. I prefer that way, or else I miss out on people’s gifts and reactions and it feels like half the fun is gone! But since there were so many of us, we only went one time around opening one present each and then it was noise and paper everywhere. Matt says that’s how they usually do things, but we take at least 45 minutes to open everything.

Christmas with 12 people = tons of presents!

Some of our gifts: Matt finally got his 3DS that he’d been wanting all year and I got a Monet puzzle with a roll-up matt, a gift card for new clothes (which I desperately need!), some movies, and a snowglobe/music box that Matt bought be from Disney. It plays “I See the Light” from Tangled, which was the song Matt and I danced to at our wedding.

And he forgot about his other presents after he opened this one…

Our niece pushing around the Tigger toy we got her in her brand new stroller! So cute.

It snowed in St. Sorlin, but not nearly as much as in Bourg d’Oisans a month ago, and it was pretty warm so it started turning into slush…but Solo still had a lot of fun! We went sleigh riding, which Solo does not like. Something about us speeding away from him gets him all worked up! We also went skiing a little, and I picked it back up more than I thought I would.

After our week at St. Sorlin we went to visit Matt’s uncle’s family in Gap, where we also went skiing and I had a blast! We went up to where there weren’t many people and where the snow was great and it was the best time I have had while skiing so far. The first couple of times were no fun, but this time was great.

Gorgeous! (Photo credit goes to Matt)

It was hard being away from my family for Christmas, that was the most difficult thing for me, especially since I haven’t seen them since May. But next year we are already planning on being in the States for Christmas! Hope you all had a wonderful time with your families, celebrating your own traditions and having fun spending time with loved ones!

Our 2nd Christmas together!

During the summer, French people take a lot of vacations! Going on 2-4 week family vacations once or twice a summer is a big part of the culture here. Unfortunately, most Americans don’t have the time or money to do the same, probably because vacations mean unpaid leave from work. But here you get paid to take five weeks of vacation time a year! That’s rather nice!

One of the vacations we took this summer was to St. Sorlin D’Arves, about an hour and a half away in the Alps. Matt’s parents own a cute little cabin there in the mountains, and they usually go a couple of weeks every summer and during Christmas. This year we also spent Easter weekend there to get one last trip at the ski slopes!

During the summer it is gorgeous (well, it’s gorgeous all the time!). The weather is sunny and cool, there are flowers everywhere, and there are plenty of fun outdoor activities to keep us busy. Solo loved it there especially. One of the best things about having an active, adventurous companion dog is that you can literally bring him anywhere, and we really do! In the three months that we’ve had him he’s been to the mountains (his favorite place), the beach, rivers, on a bike ride in one of those little kiddy trailers, on a ski lift, on hours worth of train, tram, boat and car rides, on lots of big and little hikes…and he’s done a lot of other things too that I’m forgetting. While we were in St. Sorlin we went on a four-hour hike up one of the mountains near the cabin. It was a little chilly and there was still snow in a couple of places which Solo played in (pictures at the end of this post). We stopped for lunch near the top at a lake. Overall it was a wonderful day!

Two other things we did during our week in the mountains was have a family picnic dinner around some nearby lakes during sunset, and we took a ski lift up to the same area one morning where there was a small “festival” in honor of the annual sheep pilgrimage that happens in St. Sorlin. Three shepherds migrate with their herd of around 1500 sheep from their winter pasture by the sea to their summer pasture in the mountains. We left Shepherd Solo back at the cabin, just in case he got any ideas to herd/chase the sheep!