Christmas in the french capital may not be snowy white, but it’s hard to not be filled with christmas optimism if you’re in the french capital in December. The City of Lights lives up to its name in a big method, as the trees that line the Champs-Elysées are surrounded by the numerous plants in Paris that get covered with strings of light, and the Eiffel Tower frequently gets the central point of the nocturnal skyline with its gleaming light.

In actual fact, looking at the christmas illumination in Paris is one of the best things to do when you’re checking out the city in December. The greatest places to go to have a look at the Paris christmas illumination are along the abovementioned Champs-Elysées, the length of the Rue Montorgueil and Rue Mouffetard, in the Place Vendome, in the windows of the huge department stores (as well as the famous Galeries Lafayette), and at the Notre Dame Cathedral. It’s at Notre Dame that you’ll also get to have a look at Paris’ Christmas tree, and even if you’re not a spiritual personality you might do worse than to attend a Christmas Eve ritual in the recognized church. You can reach all of these sights from Appartment in Paris

A different Christmas ritual in Paris is the short-term ice skating rinks that get set up throughout the city. The locations every year may change, but there are frequently rinks built in the square close to the Paris City Hall, also known as the Hotel de Ville, and close to Montparnasse. They tend to open in mid-December and remain open through March, so even if you’re checking out the french capital past Christmas you can still take a turn. In general, to go ice skating in Paris on these short-term rinks won’t cost you anything, but if you need to rent the ice skates that’ll be a few euro.

Attending a ritual in one of Paris’ numerous churches can be a really amazing way to spend Christmas Eve, even if you’re not a super-spiritual personality at home. And you don’t even have to speak French to get the most out of a ceremony – there are numerous English-language ceremonies throughout the city you can enter into. Unfortunately, the homepage for the Catholic churches of Paris appears to be completely in French – so you may call for some assistance from a French-native tongue friend to translate it and locate the English ceremonies, or you could just ask the Paris tourism office or in your Hotel in Paris when you arrive in the city. Additionally to attending Christmas ceremony in Paris’ churches, you may also want to do a visit of the churches during non-service times in order to see the many nativity scenes they’ve erected for the season.

Christmas in the french capital, on top of the rest of France, tends to be a family celebration – which means that rather than dining out and celebrations with friends, Parisians are more likely to be eating huge meals in familiar apartments with relatives and partying privately. Nevertheless, for a tourist, the french capital at Christmastime can even now be delightful – there’s a feeling of quiet that you may not find in Paris at any other time of year (though don’t think the streets will be discarded or anything), and there’s something about the mode a city feels when it’s preparing for a family celebration that makes it feel friendly… No matter what the temperature is outside.