Merry Christmas from The American Church in Paris

Our Music Director, Fred Gramann, created a slide show as a thank you and Christmas greeting to people who have supported The American Church in Paris in various ways. It is a beautiful presentation that is around 6 minutes long. It shows quite a bit about the church and our ministry here, so I decided to share it with you via our blog. Just click the arrow. There are pictures of Nancy and me in the choir, and I am, of course, in the picture of the church staff. Fred Gramann wrote the music that is played in the background.

Please note: You can enlarge the video picture by going to "view" on your brower. Then zoom in to about 200%. It looks great that way, and you can see the detail better than in the smaller version. (I can't seem to figure out how to make it stay larger on the blog.) When you are through viewing the video, return to "view" and reset the zoom level to 100%.

SNOW!!!! Impossible

Snow!!! in Paris. That’s impossible!! Well no, it isn’t. Improbable, but not impossible. Much to our surprise we woke up yesterday with snow on our slanted window. With a further check it was snowing quite hard outside and before long everything was covered with two/three inches of snow. The Eiffel Tower (which is about ½ mile away, as the crow flies) kept disappearing from view, curtained with snow flakes.

When I went out to walk I discovered that the snow was even deeper close to the river and away from the heat of the buildings. Cars and delivery trucks were slowing creeping along, but the motorcyclists were not faring too well.

Because of their light weight and little smooth wheels they were slipping and sliding in the traffic. I saw one slip over, but the driver quickly up righted it and parked it along side the road….to be picked up later!!

The groups of homeless men, who live in wooden crates off of a lower road to the river near us, were sitting at their table drinking something hot and enjoying their Christmas tree.

Other people were walking along quite gingerly leaving tracks in the snow.

Most people had a smile on their face and were trying to enjoy this rare occasion.

Even the neighborhood dogs were enjoying sniffing the white stuff.

The tourists loved the snow as they cruised along ON TOP of the boat singing their Christmas tunes.

I know this wasn’t much of a storm compared to what most of you have experienced in the last week or so, but it was a neat thing for us to be on the tag end of a gigantic European weather front…..which was very cold and nasty according to the weather reports. It’s beginning to look like Christmas!!!!!

(Remember that you can enlarge the pictures by clicking on them.)

Christmas Trees

Small Christmas tree lots are springing up all over the place here in Paris. They seem to be attached mostly to a local flower shop or to the Christmas Markets, so there is probably one close enough for most locals to carry a tree home. Most of the trees are natural green, but others have been flocked in white, red, orange, yellow, lime green and even black.

In the smaller lots most trees are still covered with a white plastic netting that holds the branches firmly to the trunk. So, what you are buying may be an interesting discovery when you unwrap the tree in your home!! In the larger lots, where the netting has been removed from the trees, they have a contraption where the employees can push the tree through a tube and renet the tree for you after you’ve made your choice.

While our apartment is not large enough for a tree I was interested in how much the trees were selling for. In the lot where I stopped the four foot plain green trees were 25-28 euros (about $40.), the five footers were 50 euro (about $75.) six footers were 75 euro ($110.) Taller trees and specialty trees were more, of course.

I’m not sure if this includes the wooden base, or not. With this base, you can’t water the tree, nor will it securely hold a larger tree upright….but it looks nice! Our big trees at the church are wired to the ceiling to secure them.

This Christmas tree lot is on the edge of the Christmas Market that is in the open square in front of St Suplice Church. There are about 30 booths selling mostly food and clothing items in this market.
As I talked to one of the English speaking booth owners this morning, I remarked that the rent must be high for the booths. She said the cost is 300 euros ($441) a day. She is working for a company that is trying to establish a market for some Christmas bread, so I don’t think she was too concerned about meeting a quota. But, there must be others who are working for themselves in order to make some extra income in the Christmas season. If you catch them when they aren’t too busy, they are eager to show you their wares and even share a few samples. Of course, they know that after you’ve taken a sample, you are much more apt to buy their items.

SMOKE??!!

Let me set the scene….

Ears: In our apartment off and on all day we had heard this banging, scraping and thudding. It sounded like major construction work, but where? We tried to blame the church music director who lives just under us downstairs, but he wouldn’t claim it. So, it had to be in the building that abuts our back wall. We do not share a common wall, but it would be hard to slip a thin sheet of paper between the walls. Sounds evidently carry very well through these stone buildings.

Eyes: I was in the kitchen, getting a drink of water when I looked out the window for a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower…..which I often do. The Eiffel was coming in and out of view as we had a dense fog/cloud floating around above the city buildings. Just outside my window I noticed more grayness floating around and went into the living area to point out to Don and his brother that the fog was really doing funny things today. I opened the window to show them more clearly and……

Nose: SMOKE

Now when you’re on the fifth floor of a building, that can be a bit unnerving. I grabbed my keys, then my sister-in-law and I headed down stairs to check it out. (Don and Ray were much too involved with the computer at that time to get excited.) Since no one in the reception area seemed alarmed, Laurie and I headed outside to see what we could see. Indeed, there was smoke coming out of the upstairs windows of the building nextdoor…..and three rather sheepish looking workers with their hard hats still on standing on the curb. One worker had a welding mask on his hat, so it wasn’t too hard to figure out what had probably happened.

I went back into the church and called Don to bring my camera and come on down as there were three fire trucks and multiple firemen to watch. The firemen quickly unloaded ladders and hoses…..which they pulled or took upstairs. The smoke was gone quickly and the crowd that had gathered gradually dispersed. We were just glad that this wasn't a major disaster!!!

As we went back inside, I noticed one of the hard hatted workers on his cell phone. I thought to myself that I was glad it wasn’t me that had to make the call to his boss or the building owner!!!

P.S. They were back to work in all their loudness the next morning, much to our dismay.

(We lost our “smoky” pictures when we were transferring them from the camera to the computer. Our apartment is located at the top of the “Church House”where the 3 peaked, windowed areas are…and the smoke was coming out of the top windows of the shorter building. Don has some video of the eager firemen that you might find amusing.)