Holiday magic may be for the kids, but it's we adults who need it most. And the French seem quite all right with indulging us. They might not be into hanging up stockings over the fireplace, but they let us sprinkle santons of miniature lambs and pumpkin-carrying ladies on top of our grown-up meubles. And though making gingerbread houses isn't very big here, it's totally acceptable to spend an evening trying to turn a chocolate cake into a snow-covered log.
Giant Santas and reindeer might be scarce in the City of Lights, but parents will stop to look at winter scenes of dancing princesses and twitching rabbits in store windows or at the glittering strands of lights that guide shoppers to rues commerçantes like stars.
Natalie Wood and Maureen O'Hara as Susan and Doris Walker. [Online image] 1947.
Natalie Wood and Maureen O'Hara as Susan and Doris Walker. [Online image] 1947.
