Deb's comments, just odds and ends:
*A bit of history from our recent visit to Chartres Cathedral. An American who saved Chartres (from an article in the Washington Guardian:

August, 1944. Patton’s Third Army awaits orders — that would never come — to take Paris. Elements of the Third Army, including the XX Corps, were based just outside the historic town of Chartres. On Aug. 16, Col. Welborn Barton Griffith of Texas, logistics and liaison officer in the XX Corps, learned of orders for U.S. artillery to shell Chartres Cathedral, one of the most important monuments of medieval civilization, in order to eliminate suspected German snipers and observers in the tower.
According to Eugene Schulz, author of The Ghost in General Patton's Third Army, whom American Friends of Chartres recently interviewed, Griffith — on his own initiative — and his driver approached the forward American forces and obtained information on where the Germans were located in Chartres. They were able to evade the Germans, who still occupied the city, and entered the cathedral. Griffith searched the cathedral and climbed the bell tower. He found no Germans, and was able to rescind the order to shell the monument. Thanks to Griffith’s courage, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Chartres was saved from war damage, thereby preserving it for future generations.

Griffith was killed soon after in nearby fighting in the town of Leves. He was posthumously decorated with the Silver Star, Distinguished Service Cross, and the French Croix de Guerre. He is buried at the St. James World War II Memorial Cemetery in Brittany.

In 2009, Alice Griffith Irving (Griffith's daughter) and her family attended Memorial Day at the St. James cemetery, where her father is buried along with 4,413 other American servicemen. In her words, in the AWON issue of September 2009: “More than a thousand local people attended. It was rewarding to know that the sacrifices these graves represent have not been forgotten. It was an unforgettable experience for our family."

To honor the 70th anniversary of Col. Griffith’s death, Dominique Lallement, president of American Friends of Chartres, will lay a wreath at the Houston National Cemetery in Houston, Texas, on Aug. 16, thus uniting as an expression of gratitude and friendship in the ceremony that the people of Lèves conduct annually in front of the plaque dedicated to his memory.

*It is interesting spending the holidays in a different country. I love reading (or trying to) the advertisements in the Metro and on the streets. The advertisements here do feature gift giving ideas, but concentrate much more on food and drink for the important family dinners. What's not to like about a gazillion Champagne ads?

People are crowding on public transportation carrying parcels of all sorts, but many of them are beautifully wrapped boxes and bags from bakeries, chocolate shops, wine shops, etc. The whole town pretty much shuts down for Christmas Day. Many Parisians with out-of-the-city families have headed home to the provinces, but those who live here spend the day with family and friends. Gifts tend to be small, but meals are huge and carefully thought out. And since there's lots of inexpensive bubblies to be had, the sparking wines flow, flow, flow. In the spirit of international amity, I have tried to do my part to follow this tradition...

*Christmas lights in Paris tend to be mostly municipal. Very few apartments have any external holiday lights showing, although out in the countryside, where there are more individual homes, more Christmas lights are to be seen. We've seen lots and lots of Christmas trees being carried home here in our neighborhood, all different sizes, each wrapped in a saran-wrap cocoon and each with a section of split, bark-on log to stand in. Many businesses have trees, and most of these as well as the many municipal ones are decorated in big shiny ribbon bows rather than globes.

Santa has a different method of delivering gifts. He doesn't drop down chimneys but rather rappels
down the outside of buildings, going from terrace to terrace. We've seen dozens of his representations, dangling from his ropes, with his bag of gifts, getting ready to deliver presents to the little French recipients.

*A small vignette of our neighborhood: a little girl, maybe a two year old, bundled in a fluffy white coat with fur trimmed hood and furry mittens was out with her granddad. He was trying to convince her to move on from a window display at a hairdresser near our apartment. She was mesmerized by the lighted, white Charismas trees and  a couple of big stuffed white teddy bears. She adamantly refused to be led away and he finally had to pick her up and carry her off. I was feeling sorry for her, because she was so obviously delighting in the display, but when we followed them around the corner to our crosswalk, all became well. He was taking her to see an even bigger display in the window of another nearby store. For all I know, they are still there, at least one of the two, hypnotized.

*Our lovely lunch at the river edge restaurant, La Goelette out in Conflans, left us reminiscing about the many memorable meals we've been lucky enough to enjoy over the years. We drank a toast to you, our dear friends, who have made so many of those meals memorable.

*And the proprietor/waiter at the restaurant added to our enjoyment as well. The restaurant obviously doesn't get much tourist trade, and the happy group out at the bar was particular evidence of that. Several guys had obviously come over in their own boat, moored outside. They were standing at the bar in jeans and wellies, and saluted us good naturedly when we entered. They were swilling champers with a right good will, and progressed from that to oysters (tis the season all over France) and then to big bowls of something at the single table out in the corner of the bar area. They were visiting with the proprietor and bantering outrageously with the cooks back in the kitchen. Their obvious enjoyment added to ours.

*The inadequacies of my French language capability always leave me a little sad, especially in places like this little restaurant where there was no English menu or English spoken for that matter. With my primitive French, I miss so many meanings. But I'm grateful to catch what I do. Like our waiter, responding when I asked if they had rooms to recover in after such a wonderful lunch, that they only offered "rooms by the hour" and went off laughing merrily.

*As I've commented before, I'd probably do much better with the infamous brusque, unfriendly French waiters that we never seem to find. Our guy was just delighted to try to explain stuff to us about what the restaurant had to offer. He was so great about talking to us about his magnificent collection of Armagnacs, but I know we missed so many of the finer points. Ah, well, after sniffing and discussing a dozen proffered bottles,  we grasped enough to order a couple of delightful portions of a 1972 and a 1991 that we savored, sip by sip. As well we should have, since their cost approximately equaled that of the rest of the meal. One pays for one's sins.

*We'll be missing both our blood and extended families at this holiday season, but looking forward to next year with you. We send you our very best wishes for a lovely holiday and the best of New Years.