Christmas Tree!

Today we bought our Paris Christmas Tree (sapin de Noël). Stands starting showing up yesterday, and so we figured we should jump on it, as well as get it before American Thanksgiving. I'd never had a real tree, and while they do have artificial ones here, it just made sense to get a real one for this one off event.

Most of the trees here are flocked, and not a light coating either, so it looks like the tree went through a blizzard. We went with the closest shop near our apartment, so after lugging the tree home a few blocks we got it setup. Also after unwrapping it, we found that it's more a Christmas Shrub than a Christmas Tree, but Kara loves it anyways.

Another thing we weren't sure about is how to water it. All the Christmas trees in Paris come mounted in a chopped in half log. Which apparently is exactly what you don't want to have. But we didn't see any of the typical tree stands which let it stand in water, and were trying to come up with ideas of how to keep it in water. Our Google-fu wasn't coming up with anything (other than that mounting it in wood is a terrible idea) until we searched in French, and on one of the French websites it seemed to imply you just need a little bit of water in a saucer to put the log in. So we figured a cookie sheet would do and we'll try to keep it moist as best we can. When Kara asked about it the next day in her French class, her teacher seemed very confused that we were worrying about watering it. Apparently it just stays hydrated with this magic log ("you have a log, why do you need water"). So I guess we'll see how long this tree actually lasts, maybe they make trees differently in France. I hope it can make it to Christmas!

(Update: Even with just the log to put it in, our Paris Christmas tree lasted all the way through Christmas. Either they use different types of trees here that stand up to lack of watering, or the logs really are magical)

We then went off to find lights and some ornaments for it. And in the process learned the word for "flashing" (clignotantes) after we got the lights home and discovered they were flashing lights, which drive both of us insane (who actually likes flashing Christmas lights???). So that will be an adventure in returning merchandise then.

Also we had to call the plumber today since our shower is clogged and our normal remedies aren't working. Kara was able to do it all in French, even after they started asking direction questions like which floor we were on, and got it booked for Thursday afternoon. So we'll see how that goes.