2017 Christmas in Geneva: Xmas Came and Xmas went. 12/25/2017 and 12/26/2017

Merry, merry… Joyeux joyeux

Had a somewhat relaxing morning — catching up on work — and then we headed to Elizabeth’s for Christmas dinner. We decided to walk since the weather was good (meaning no rain). It’s a fairly short walk – about 15 minutes, but all up hill. Anyway, we arrived and were among the early ones.. (2:15), but by about 3:00 everyone was present and accounted for (aunts and cousins from Paris and Bordeaux, siblings from London, us from California), except for two friends from NY who were arriving by train from Ulm, Germany. The first two hours was a lot of schmoozing and trying to put names to faces and also to understand everyone’s relationship to other people in the room.  Naturally the big attraction was still the baby..

By the time everyone arrived, the floor around the tree was covered and piled high with presents, including one package (which we couldn’t initially locate under the tree) that meowed non-stop. The culprit was a fluffy stuffed animal (cat) that was a gift for one of the kids in the French family. While everyone was quite well behaved, within an hour it became clear that the kids just couldn’t wait until after the long, leisurely dinner to open gifts. So kids were told they could find their gifts and open them while we were all having foie gras and blinis with salmon and other appetizers. So by then the room was strewn (or at least one corner of the room was strewn) with doll-size baby carriages, stuffed animals, games, books, etc. Probably a good idea since the kids seemed pretty pre-occupied with the gifts until they showed up at the table (kids ages: 14, 7, 3, 1.5 — all cousins of Julian).

Dinner was wonderful – capon with roasted potatoes, green beans wrapped in pancetta, pumpkin, great breads, great wines. After dinner the grownups exchanged gifts and then played some kind of games that involved pantomime and other embarrassing actions. But the 7 year old and 14 year old were totally into it, so we carried forth.  The 7 year old had to act out several different things and she was quite funny, but I have to say that each pantomime looked the same as the next…. And then there were great desserts, including a wonderful Clementine cake by Emma and an equally wonderful ginger cake by Elizabeth. There were also other desserts. At about midnight, we headed back to the auberge (which is really getting on our nerves) and went to bed.

But sleep was short lived as I contracted some kind of stomach flu (??) and was rather incapacitated all night. By morning, when I was so weak I looked at emails and texts to learn that several other people had similar problems including Julien, Emma, Hem, and at least two or three others. Can’t really figure it out, as Mike ate exactly the same thing I ate. Anyway, I spent all day today (Dec 26) in bed. Don’t think I’ve done that in years… Literally, in bed until 7:30pm… Then we headed to Elizabeth’s where she concocted a simple soup with rice, I ate as much as I could (which was not much) and then we headed back to the auberge where we are now… and where I am placing my little head back onto the pillow…

I’m truly hoping for a miracle and to feel fine tomorrow. I’ll let you know.

Take care –

Fern