Our First Christmas in France

Well, we survived our first Christmas in France! I know that sounds bad to say we 'survived' Christmas. But, honestly, I was really worried about what this Christmas was going to be like. Matthew and I knew that since we just moved here in October we would not be flying back to the US for Christmas. We had resigned to the fact that it would just be the two of us for Christmas this year. Then, my wonderful, thoughtful (and very beautiful) sister took it upon herself to contact all of our friends and family and ask for donations to help pay for a plane ticket to bring my mom to us for the holidays! The response was overwhelming and humbling, and on December 16th, my mom flew to France!!! We had a quiet Christmas here, but it was wonderful having my mom with us. We went to the Christmas Eve service at the English-speaking church and then made a nice dinner. Christmas morning we woke up and made a big breakfast including "Papaw's" gravy and biscuits (Matthew has been trying to perfect his grandfather's sawmill gravy recipe for years!). Then we took a short walk to the bakery (yes, they were open on Christmas day!) to get a fresh loaf of bread for our Christmas dinner. When we came home we opened presents. Then we started making our Christmas dinner. We were very proud of our culinary achievements for our dinner. We had prime rib with sauteed mushrooms, mashed potatoes, green beans, and grilled artichoke hearts. For dessert we had a traditional "buche de noel". After dinner we watched A Christmas Story on the SlingBox. We also spent quite a bit of time on Skype talking to Matthew's family before they left for Kentucky, and then my family who had all gathered in Atlanta at my grandparents' house. It did make me a little homesick seeing our families, but they opened the presents that were from us in front of the webcam so we felt like we were there, almost.
A big "Thank You" to all of the Christmas Angels who helped send my mom to us for Christmas. It was the best gift we received!!!!