The French celebrate their holidays about like we do but theirs have a lot of time honored traditions still within them today. Maybe we all should take a hint from that and apply some old time traditions into our own celebrations for the holidays?

Easter in France is taken seriously, especially by those who have dedicated Catholic faith. The bells of all French Catholic Churches do no ring for three days leading up to Easter Sunday. They all them chime and people turn to their neighbors and loved ones and hug as the music from the bells ring out.

Kids receive eggs of tasty chocolate all over France on Easter morning. These are thought to be given to them from the Flying Bells that chime on Easter morning from the churches as they fly overhead they drop the eggs in yards and homes for the kids to find and search for that day. No cute bunny for them.

France has a glorious Christmas season. Shops and residence are all decked out in holiday cheer. In homes some people still choose to decorate in old world style with candies in delectable arrays and nuts on their trees instead of the more modern glittery and lighted ones others choose to use. Stockings will not be hung by the hearths here, it is shoes instead to be filled by Pere Noel on Christmas Eve.

The Christmas trees in France have additional decoration of delightful candies and nuts on them. Sometimes candles are lit in all the windows as well on Christmas eve night. Most everyone goes to mass for Christmas eve and then all settle in to a delicious menu of turkey, chicken, French desserts, puddings and sides to bring in the joy of the season on Christmas Eve.

Bastille Day is celebrated throughout France on the fourteenth of July with parades in the streets and fireworks that go on until the night is well on its way. Townspeople gather to commemorate the mobs of angry people who stormed through this once famous Paris prison and freed the prisoners and towns from the awful things being done there.

Fireworks can be seen all over the towns on Bastille Day and last until late night. People also have dances within the streets and love parades of all kinds to celebrate this day.

French wedding customs are mostly like ours in other countries. One exception is the bottle beheading of a poor little champagne bottle by the groom using a saber specially created for just such an event. This is said to have started with Napoleon's troops playing a game and beheading bottles of booze with their sabers.

The troops of Napoleons armies would ask ladies to hold their own bottles skyward and then lop off the necks with their sabers and drink and feast afterwards. What fun they had then. We smartened up quite a bit since then and decided that was not a very safe way of doing it.

Holiday time in the French life is a time to enjoy family and friends and spend time with those you do not often get to see. The French take these holidays to heart and since several centuries ago have given their workers the option of having a complete five weeks of holiday time off from work. Workers can use this for whatever holidays they decide upon. I think that would be a custom we would all love to have enforced in our country?

Everyone wants to have the French Life. If you feel you want to learn a little more about Living in France, you will find that there are a lot of places where you can get more info.

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