As many of you know, this year we decided to spend the holidays in Geneva, rather than flying back to the US. Obviously we would have liked to have come back and catch up with friends and family – but we didn’t, so there’s no use dwelling on it. Hey – if you want sappiness, you’re gonna have to talk to Sophia!
Anyway, the original plan was to spend a couple days with our Christmas tree, sitting around and reflecting on how great a year it’s been. And, of course, watching tv. In fact, the whole reflecting thing was never gonna happen, especially considering we have like fifteen shows we need to catch up on. We also were going to spend a day or two skiing, but since the seemingly minor injury I sustained last weekend has yet to heal, I thought it best not to push my luck just yet. Sophia, of course, needed no convincing to stay in the apartment in lieu of hitting the slopes, so it was an easy decision.
A really quick 
note on the Christmas tree: it was a debacle getting that thing. As we don’t have a car here in Geneva, getting a Christmas tree involves either A) renting a car B) taking the tree on the public tram C) carrying the tree all the way across town. Since B and C sounded kind of silly, we opted for A. On the bright side, we can rent a car for short periods of time, such as two hours, making it relatively inexpensive to use a car for an errand such as this. On the other hand, we still had to rent a car to pick up a Christmas tree, which seems somehow ridiculous. But, that’s what we did. It wasn’t until after purchasing the tree that we realized we didn’t have anything to tie it to the top of the car with, since we normally don’t have a car in which to tie things to the top of. That, and I’m not even sure if it’s legal to do this in Switzerland. Thus, in true improvisational style, we folded down the seat of the compact car and chauffered the tree through Geneva in the front. On the bright side, it was a much quieter passenger than Sophia normally is, and it smelled like pine, rather than Asian food. Sorry honey – but that’s what you get for making yet another batch of kimchi!
We did take the opportunity on one of these days to drive over to the outdoor market in Divonne, France. Once again, we rented a car for a couple of hours (actually turned out to be the same car, and with no trace of pine needles!) and drove across the unmanned French-Swiss border to buy way more scarce necessities (such as red meat and wine) than we are legally allowed to bring back into Switzerland. This was yet another good market, and even after seeing so many of them, we still think that markets are awesome.
One quick shout-out to the city of Geneva: somebody did an amazing job decorating the downtown area! Colors all over the place, one of the churches has a cascade of white light pouring from it, there’s a nice Christmas tree in one of the squares…it really makes the city look great! I normally feel Geneva doesn’t go the extra mile when it comes to decorations, but this year they did really well on the Christmas lights. Not sure if the pictures will do them justice, but I braved the sub-zero temperatures to go out at night and take these, so I’m posting them regardless!
Other than that, we did some nice relaxing, a lot of good eating, and some more relaxing – so it turned out well. Even got to see “A Christmas Story”, which is pretty much the all-time greatest Christmas movie, a fact verified by TBS each year as it runs it in a 24-hour loop. TBS rules!
Next week: New Year’s in Paris!
Christmas in Geneva
