Holidays abroad reminders of home

Editor's note: This letter answers some questions about how holidays are observed in France, where Dane Lincoln is spending the school year as part of an exchange program with Rotary International.

Before the holiday season rolled around, the time spent at the dinner table was quite a bit more than at home. A "big" meal at home on a regular basis is pretty much unheard of until a holiday when we have guests or my family travels to St. Louis to meet with my extended family. On average, I'd say we spend about one and a half hours actually at the table with most of that spent eating. One course right after the other or all the courses on the table at once and you can pick and choose what you want.

In France, table time with the whole family can last anywhere from four hours to the 10 hours I spent sitting at a table for New Year's Eve/ New Year's Day. Most of that time, however, is not spent eating, but talking for hours upon end telling about your views on politics, telling a couple of jokes and reminiscing about past years. Very similar to home in fact, except for the endurance needed to wait through those many hours.

Holidays in France

Holidays here also are time for family and friends, much like home as well. For the New Year, my host family and I went to a family friends' house to celebrate the end of the old and the start of the new. During this "jolly time of celebration," the amount of alcohol consumed over the course of the 10 hour night/day was staggering to me -- a person not used to being around so much alcohol at one time. At least 10 bottles of wine (both red and white from the Bordeaux and Alsace regions) along with five bottles of champagne (France only gives the name "champagne" to the bubbly from the Champagne region) was almost not enough to fit the bill for the nine adults in attendance!

I made it through this season by only gaining half of a kilo (about one pound), which isn't that surprising since I can usually eat a horse and by the next day be back down to my "hovering" weight.

Let it snow!

Even as I am typing this, the white cold stuff is falling from heaven just two days before I return to my lycée from the Christmas break. This is the first time it has snowed here since I have been in France. Throughout France, though, there is a shortage of snow at some mountains but not a shortage of rain. So seeing snow now and here --just northwest of the snow barren slopes of the Alps -- was truly a surprise and a beautiful present, if only a week and a half late!

Reality booms here, also

On the Sunday before Christmas, one of the hottest reality shows in France -- its hype can only be compared to "Survivor" in the states -- ended. This was the second installment of the TV show "Star Academy." This show, obviously targeted for the 12-year-old adolescent with its flashing lights and neon colors, drew in the teenager crowd with its pop songs and "pretty faces" and enticed the 35-and-up crowd with guest singers from the past appearing in the once-a-week televised concerts. "Star Academy" mania swept over France. All of the ladies of my host family were enthralled every Saturday night at 9 p.m. and every weekday at 7 p.m. to see this soap opera unfold daily. The program was a cross between "Big Brother" and "Making the Band," both of which were reality shows on TV in the US.

One can only wait until next fall to see pre-pubescent girls crying over being 10 yards away from the contestant they want to win it all!