Christmas in Paris may not be snowy white, but it’s hard to not be full with xmas joyfulness if you’re in Paris in December. The City of Lights lives up to its name in a big way, as the trees that surround the Champs-Elysées are amongst the many trees in Paris that get covered with strings of light, and the Eiffel Tower often gets the focal point of the nighttime skyline with its gleaming light.

In actual fact, viewing the xmas lights in Paris is one of the top things to do when you’re checking out the city in December. The best places to go to have a look at the Paris xmas lights are alongside the abovementioned Champs-Elysées, all along 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 Church. It’s at Notre Dame that you’ll additionally get to take a look at Paris’ Christmas tree, and even if you’re not a spiritual personality you could do worse than to attend a Christmas Eve ceremony in the recognized cathedral. You can reach all of these sights from Appartment in Paris

Another Christmas ritual in Paris is the short-term ice skating rinks that get arranged around the city. The venues each year can vary, but there are frequently rinks raised in the open area close to the Paris City Hall, also known as the Hotel de Ville, and close to Montparnasse. They are likely to open in mid-December and remain open through March, so even if you’re checking out Paris after Xmas you can however take a turn. In general, to go ice skating in Paris on these short-term rinks won’t cost you anything, but if you must rent the ice skates that’ll be some euro.

Attending a ceremony in one of Paris’ many churches can be a really amazing mode to spend Christmas Eve, even if you’re not a super-spiritual personality at home. And you don’t even have to be fluent in French to get the most out of a service – there are numerous English-speeking ceremonies around the city you can take part in. Unfortunately, the website for the Catholic churches of Paris appears to be totally in French – so you may call for some help from a French-native tongue colleague to translate it and find the English ceremonies, or you may just ask the Paris tourism office or in your Hotel in Paris when you arrive in the city. Besides to attending Christmas ceremony in Paris’ churches, you may also like to do a expedition|visit} of the churches for the period of non-service times in order to see the many nativity scenes they’ve erected for the season.

Xmas in Paris, on top of 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 eating big meals in comfortable apartments with relatives and partying privately. However, for a tourist, Paris at Christmastime can still be dreamlike – there’s a sense of silence that you may not find in Paris at any other period of year (though don’t imagine the streets will be abandoned or something), and there’s something about the manner a city feels when it’s preparing for a family holiday that lets it feel friendly… No matter what the temperature is on the streets.