Spending Christmas in France is a Thing

Our recent Christmas trip to Paris and the Alsace region reminded us why we travel at all, and why some experiences deserve to be savored instead of rushed. Ah, Paris—elegant, layered, endlessly walkable, and built for lingering over good food, long conversations, and streets that reward you for paying attention. At Christmastime, Paris earns it’s reputation as the City of Lights. Paris in December just feels different—quieter in some corners, cozier in others, with garlands draped over café doors and shop windows glowing with holiday displays. We let the Christmas season festivities set the pace instead of racing through a tourist checklist. We also assimilated as locals the best we could by building our days around cafés, pâtisseries, neighborhood bistros, and long walks with nowhere in particular to be. We let Paris become our neighborhood rather than our destination—spending slow mornings in nearby parks feeding ducks alongside locals, slipping into free museums the way locals escape the cold, and wandering through holiday storefronts just to admire the Christmas window displays. Most days were nothing more than errands, strolls, and small discoveries, the kind of ordinary routines that made us feel less like visitors and more like temporary residents folded into the city’s everyday life.vendors. The miles added up—over 100,000 steps and roughly 70 miles—but it never felt like effort. It felt like living inside a city-sized advent calendar, each turn revealing something small and delightful. Being present became its own kind of holiday ritual. Eating well, moving often, and slowing down grounded us in a way that felt healthier than any resolution. Where you live—and how you move through it—shapes how you feel physically, mentally, and spiritually. Paris reminded us of that.

Midway through our trip, we boarded a high‑speed train and headed east toward the Germany and Switzerland borders to explore the quaint towns scattered throughout the Alsace. Our timing was ideal, with the Christmas season bursting into full view just as we arrived. We based ourselves in Colmar, France—a perfect hub for experiencing the region.

Travel Tip: A practical tip for anyone following in our footsteps: use Colmar as your home base and rely on ride-shares like Uber or Bolt to reach the surrounding towns. Most quaint Christmas towns are all less than twenty‑five minutes away and unreachable by train. Relying on ride-shares will help you avoid the long lines, confusing bus routes, and rigid timelines that can sap the joy from an otherwise magical region.

Colmar felt like a living postcard, with half-timbered houses that glowed under strings of Christmas lights and life-sized teddy bears strung from hundreds of windows. In Kaysersberg, the miles of vineyards and the 13th Century chateau perched high above the village not only impressed us, it slowed us down, nudging us to be even more present and appreciative of the moment. The town of Eguisheim wrapped itself in circular medieval lanes filled with warmth, each turn offering another small market stall, another shared moment, another reason to linger. Riquewihr also leaned fully into the season where every sight, sound and smell screamed Christmas. Compared to Christmas back home, the markets felt less commercial and more communal, less about buying and more about simply being present. This contrast stayed with us long after we returned home.