Christmas decorations and the Christmas spirit in France
December 31st, 2006 | 
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It’s not the things that they do, it’s the things that they don’t do that makes France a little peculiar.
For instance, if you go to most Christian countries in the world in the run-up to Christmas you’ll see little nativity scenes in the streets and shopping centres. Not so in France. Here the decorations are devoid of any religious symbolism. In fact, it seems to be entirely aimed at helping the shops sell more. OK, there’s a whole lot of marketing going on in other countries at this time too and perhaps the Christian message doesn’t get such a high profile as it should but at least in the other countries you do get reminders of the meaning of Christmas through the decorations in the shops and the nativity scenes put on by everyone.
Here in Catalonia that seems particularly odd because just across the border in the Spanish Catalunya all those symbols are in evidence everywhere as you can see from this nativity scene in one of the shopping centres.
That absence makes for a certain lack of Christmas spirit too. In other countries, the post office work flat out right up to midnight on Christmas Eve and don’t leave anything in the sorting centres if they can possibly avoid it. Here, they couldn’t care less and Christmas presents often aren’t delivered until a week or more after Christmas Day. As always, France get these things the wrong way around: in Spain we were given a calendar to say thank-you for choosing to eat in the Dong Xing restaurant in Girona yet in France the postal workers are quite insistent on you buying their calendars for a service which they clearly don’t follow through with (consequently Wendy’s decided that she will be equally insistent on not buying it next year).
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In France, you’ll find the nativity scenes in the churches or outside the churhes, that is because not all french are religious ! Our tradition is not to put nativity scenes everywhere, for me, a nativity scene in a shopping center would be very strange and even choking !
The fact that “most french people get presents only a week after christmas” that is rubbish and I’d like to know where you got this information???
The postal calendar is anchored in France as a kind of tradition. In fact, most of the public services (postal service, firefghters, the guys who clean down the streets, etc.) go around every house to sell calendars. It’s a kind on “gift” french people give to those who provide them all those services during the year. Refusing it is understandable if you’re not aware of this, but it will most certainly be viewed as insulting, and you will not be well seen not only by the guy from the postal service who tried to sale you the calendar, but probably also by your neighbours who will think you make no effort to accept the local culture.
Not everyone in the UK is religious either but the nativity scenes and similar are just about everywhere.
What happens in the UK is that the Post Office keep working on Christmas Eve until their warehouse is empty, regardless of how long it takes. In France, they don’t appear to work any longer than usual, the net effect being that presents are delivered up to a week after Christmas Day.
The thing that gets us is that they come around asking for a “present” (ie “buy our calendar”) before Christmas. Our British expectation is therefore that they will be working all out so to speak and yet they didn’t. We know for a fact (as per tracking information) that a number of things were in France for about 2 weeks prior to Christmas yet weren’t delivered ’til a week after. That’s very poor service by any standards.
I don’t argue with the calendars for the likes of the firemen and so on although, from our prespective, the firemen’s one feels a little like they’re asking for “protection money”. However, we won’t be buying the Post Office calendar this coming Christmas as the service provided was just so dreadfully bad.
It’s true that the french postal service in France as a bad reputation… and it surely deserves it ! I admit that I don’t get many problems with the postal service because I live in Paris and it’s maybe the only place in France where it works “quite well”. I can imagine that outside the big cities, this service can be very deficient. But keep in mind that it’s not completely the workers fault. Postal service in the countryside is very poor, because there simply isn’t enough people working in this service ! And since the postal service is a public service, the responsability is more a goverment responsability than your local postal office’s.
Ah, now Paris. Actually, that’s the main problem with a lot of things in France. It’s just too Paris-centered. From what we’ve seen, it looks like all international post goes by way of Paris which obviously creates a major bottle-neck at Christmas.
The postal service in the UK is also a public service. The difference there is that at Christmas they just keep working whereas in France, apparently, they don’t.
I think you’re right about it not being the fault of the local post office as the Christmas problem appears to be down to the sorting offices who presumably don’t get the benefit of the “calendar money”.
You’ve just hit one of France’s great problems… The centre of everithing is PARIS ! All the roads lead to Rome? in France it’s more like they all go by Paris…Want to take a train from Brittany to the Alps? you’ll have to go to Paris first. You want to buy fresh fish in Rennes? the fish you’re buying went through Paris where it was sold, before it went back to Britany. Look at the Highways or the TGV network. Anything strikes you? They are all centered on Paris…
If you want to write a full article on the subject, there are many things to say about it 😀 !