Europe is not cold season

One of my professors in French university shared that he always waited for winter to hibernate! That is when he deliberately disconnected all connections and crawled into a corner and slept comfortably without fear of being disturbed by anyone. “To sleep comfortably, to make up for hundreds of mornings, you must put your reason above your desire to sleep in!”

My friend Charlotte also speaks fondly of winter, although her favorite habit of the coldest season of the year makes me, a tropical person, shiver a little. Charlotte loves the feeling of reading a book on the ice-covered mountains of the majestic French Alps in the morning. There is nothing better than the sight of the early morning sunlight shining down on the white surroundings, holding a good book in your hand and knowing that it will be past noon before those late tourists can climb up to your place. From faraway Alsace, every year Charlotte drives nearly 5 hours to her family's vacation home in the village of Combloux. She is so familiar with this place that she has memorized all the neighboring roads and is attached to each specialty restaurant in the area. And wherever the car takes her, there is always a story to tell.

While Charlotte had to go far away to enjoy winter in her own way, another friend of mine preferred to stay in a familiar house, deep in a sparsely populated village near the Jura Mountains, close to the Swiss border. Cathy chose to live in a remote place so that family members would have less excuses to go out in the cold, a way to multiply the time together before the children would leave the old roof. This thinking coming from Cathy is really not surprising, because she is one of the most feminine, family-oriented French women I have ever met.

Later, every time she knew I was about to return to the country, this dentist mother often sent many small gifts to the orphans at the orphanage I often visited. Sometimes it was a suitcase of toothbrushes and toothpaste that she had ordered in addition to the needs of the dental office, sometimes it was colored pens and even wallets that she had cut, sewn, and embroidered herself. The first time we met, Cathy taught me how to make macarons for the first time in my life with the message: "No matter how busy a woman is, she should take time to make cakes for her husband and children on the weekends."

The further away from the European winter, the more I feel lucky to have met wonderful people, to be close to them and to experience the full moments of the season with them. After all, life can take away the people we love or push us out of familiar skies but it certainly cannot erase the happy memories we have created together.

I still remember the first Christmas tree I decorated myself was a plastic tree, only about 50 centimeters high. The three of us girls who shared an apartment pooled our money together to buy it from the Kruidvat supermarket. When we were poor students, just watching TV with a cup of hot chocolate covered in marshmallows was considered a luxury, let alone having a Christmas tree in the corner of the house.

A year later, I decided not to spend 20 Euros on a plastic tree and instead built my own tree out of books. Kitty Kelley’s 608-page “Oprah: A Biography” was of course one of the books used as a base. The thinner, easier-to-read books were placed near the top, as if to say, “Read me, I’m thin.”

And if you, like me, feel like you haven’t read enough and need a little motivation to finish all the books you’ve bought, why not try building your own Christmas tree out of books? Then set a deadline of one year to slowly “dismantle” each book, before “building a new” Christmas tree next Christmas? I like to compare those books to the gifts looming on Christmas trees. They make us want to peel off the wrapping paper, and tell ourselves to wait a little longer, just a little longer, the night of the 24th is almost here.

The excitement of winter is perhaps because it gives everyone something to look forward to. Waiting to watch the dance of lights while walking under the splendidly decorated streets. Waiting to hear the Galeries Lafayette shopping center telling fairy tales behind the fashionable glass windows. Waiting to meet the delicious aroma lurking behind the carts of roasted chestnuts in the city square. Waiting to laugh out loud with the stories of a witty friend, over a pot of Fondue Comtoise (a hot pot of cheese from the Franche-Comté region). Waiting to sip a glass of homemade cider from a cheerful shop owner who probably doesn't remember him - among the hundreds of thousands of visitors gathered at the Christmas market - to, like us, make their date of the year with winter.

More information:

+ Experience: One of the favorite experiences of tourists and Parisians is to visit famous shopping centers to see the festive windows. You should visit Printemps Haussmann, Galeries Lafayette, BHV, le Bon Marché... The display space for these new collections is a splendid window with many interesting costumed characters.

+ European dishes to try in winter:

-Fatted goose liver (foie gras) is one of the dishes that often appear on the dining table of French families during the holidays. This dish is fatty but not boring, especially delicious and is often eaten with bread or processed into a pan-fried dish with fruit sauce, baked green apples...

-Mulled wine is a favorite drink of people in European countries, most popular in Germany. You can sip a glass of red wine with a strong spicy taste, with the aroma of orange, cinnamon, anise and cloves at the Christmas markets.

Article: Trang Ami. Photos: Various authors

The Thanh