Sunday, May 08, 2016

Dreaming of France -- Holidays

Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.

Today is Mother's Day in the United States, and our plan is to move to France next year the week after Mother's Day.
Here is my mother and her four children. I'm the girl on the right, without the teased hair!
Mother's Day is a deadline of sorts for us since we chose the week after Mother's Day to leave  next year. That means that from now until we move, I will be filled with melancholy about the last time we... whatever it is. Celebrate Father's Day. Celebrate Fourth of July. Labor Day. Birthdays. Thanksgiving. Christmas.
I'm so thrilled at the plan to move to France, but I, of course, am nervous about moving so far away from my children and my parents.
Here I am in La Rochelle, France with my three children, along with a friend's teenager. She came along to show us around.
My good times in France with the kids should encourage me that we'll have more good times to come.  This was 1998. 
So next year, on Mother's Day, I plan to convince my mother to come to Ohio so we can celebrate together. Then, I have already told my husband that we must return to the United States for my mother's 80th birthday in November 2017. So I know we'll be back here for that and Thanksgiving together. Maybe we can slowly wean ourselves from American holidays.

Here we are in Paris having a meal with our family friend, Marguerite.
I really hope that our children will come visit us in France and we can celebrate holidays with them.
Truthfully, the French have so many holidays that I really shouldn't miss the American ones.

Thanks so much for playing along with Dreaming of France. I really appreciate your participation and I hope you'll leave a comment plus visit each other's blogs.

10 comments:

Sim Carter said...

It makes sense to me that you’d be homesick for American holidays, the French may have many holidays but until you become entrenched in life there, they’re mostly an excuse for a party while your American holidays are filled with a lifetime of memories packed into each one. I’m getting teary just thinking about it.
And don’t get me started on the kids! I don’t want to belabor the point but that’s got to be harder, harder than them just being away for college etc. And on that positive note! HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!

Here’s my DreamingOf France post

Linda said...

I missed Thanksgiving the most but am pretty much ok now. No football games but I can still make a Thanksgiving meal.

Anonymous said...

Happy to link up, have a great week.

Jacqui Brown said...

It is great to have your memories, but don't forget you will be making new memories in France, just like we have.

Anonymous said...

We do Thanksgiving and July 4, and we just had a big Cinco de Mayo party. You can make your own holidays. The hardest part will be the kids. Make sure you move to where you can easily make air connections!

Mae Travels said...

Do you have specific plans for where in France you are moving to? In Paris there are a lot of Americans, thus opportunities to celebrate all the French AND American holidays and mash them up creatively!

I posted quite a bit on France this week since I was in Paris for a spell of beautiful spring weather.

best... mae at maefood.blogspot.com

our life in france said...

Wow lovely pictures, they are so important, it will take a while to adjust to france but you will and all will be ok, I have been a bit tardy lately with my blog but I will be back

Jenny and John in France said...

I left my only daughter to come to France when she was pregnant, it was so hard, but we have managed to make it work you have quality time with family as you have to make so much more effort. Good luck, you never know they may just follow you :)

Unknown said...

I am a Francophile and to appease my addiction we bought a little apartment in the Loire Valley. The last eight years have been full of events which I have been writing about in my emails. But I have not got to the blog stage yet, so I will return to all these links when I have got my social network under control.

But to see our little bit of paradise, visit loirevillageescape.com.

We are happy to share it with anyone wanting a true classical village escape.
I can highly recommend it!
There is so much to see and do when you are a Francophile.
C'est la joie de vivre!

Kiwi said...

We lived in Paris in 1998-99, and plan on going to live there (and in our second home in Normandy) by April of next year, so great minds think alike. That year in Paris, when our daughter was 5, was probably the best year of our lives! Of course, we weren't working, but still... You will likely find yourselves so busy and preoccupied with learning the new culture and setting up your place that you won't be too homesick. One great thing about living in France is that everyone wants to visit you. So, better than Antarctica...
I've been enjoying your book "I See London, I See France" in the Kindle version. Hope you gain many more new readers through this blog.
Last week I put up a new post on http://www.atinyhouseinnormandy.com/blog about the intersection of American and French courage in Normandy, 1944. Enjoy!

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