Guest Post: Sara in Le Petit Village

First up in my series of fantastical guest posters is Sara from Sara in Le Petit Village.

Not only is Sara hilarious and a lover of cheese and wine, she's a fellow Texan!

But Sara wins at life because she lives in a quaint village in Provence with her French husband and a band of always-entertaining characters [and a dog named Fifty].

I highly suggest you go check her out immediately!

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Alex asked me to guest post on her blog, while she's cavorting around Europe, and of course I said yes, I mean, anything for a fellow Texas cavorting around Europe, right?

And since it's that most wonderful time of the year, and one of Alex's cavorting destinations is Dublin (one of my former hometowns) I'm going to write about Christmas in Dublin. Or more specifically why I loved it so much (I'm using 'loved' instead of 'love' since I no longer live in Dublin, and now spend Christmas with my in-law's in France... although last year I did manage to pop back over for the holidays).

Via

Dublin, like loads of other cities, likes to get tarted up a bit for Christmas... the lights are slung all over the major shopping streets and wreaths hung. But Dublin is blessed with buskers (sometimes too many in fact) but at Christmas time most of them play Christmas music right there on the street, so besides the normal music blaring from shop's speakers, there's live music, keeping you company along your way as well.

And since we're talking about music, let's talk about the best Christmas song of all time, Fairytale of New York, by The Pogues and Kristy McColl. You can't turn on a radio in Dublin without hearing it. It has to be the most unjolly, perverse Christmas song ever. And it's wonderful. Have a listen (and check out a young Matt Dillon guest starring as 'the cop')...

 

The Irish know how to have a good time and Christmas is as good as an excuse as any. Work places go into full on festive mode, hosting some pretty amazing Christmas parties (I've been to ones at both the Jameson and Guinness factories... brilliant locations for parties!) and on Christmas Eve we'd always knock off early. Like real early. But that would be after Irish Coffees and Baileys that would have been made by 10am. Then it would be off to the pub.

 

 

After the goodbye, Happy Christmas drinks with your workmates in town, you'd head to your local pub to meet up with friends and family for a few pints and then on to Midnight Mass. Midnight Mass should always be attended after the pub. It's much merrier that way.

And there you have it... just a few of the reasons I loved Christmas in Dublin... a tarty city, perverse Christmas music, Bailey's for breakfast, and merry Midnight Mass.

Happy Holidays!