It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! I like spending Christmas holidays in beautiful places, including my own home of course. Fair enough, I just really like Christmas. Not so much when I was growing up, but as an adult I made the conscious choice to make my life exactly what I wanted it to be, instead of relying on others, therefore, I make Christmas MAGIC. And no other city on the planet does Christmas Magic better than Paris!

The lights, the glitter, the pomp, the markets, the delicious windows, the amazing food stalls on the Champs Elysee even in the rain like tonight, there is still a bit of magic in the air, it's the 1st of December, just 24 more days, yay!

Christmas is for kids, that's for sure, but these Parisians make it about family. I can't explain why, but it's just so much more elegant here! Suddenly, beautiful boughs of pine branches magically appear above shop doors and facades. I haven't yet seen a single string lit faux reindeer or a plastic Santa hung from a window, instead, beautiful lights, silver glitter balls, red or silver bows, it's lovely!

My last favorite Christmas was spent in Paris with my dear friend Doctor Heather from Los Angeles. It was the one holiday we spent together where I wasn't walking wounded or sick, and it was great for us to experience Paris together with the Kidlet. Meringues were involved. I haven't dared yet send her a photo of the new shop on Rue St. Dominique that has mountains of meringues in the street corner window. She'd be camped outside licking that window I think, along with the other tourists and children. It won't be one of her finest moments, but I know she'll be happy, that's all that matters.

A number of years ago Kidlet and I spent Christmas in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, in the Yucatan. We took along our Romanian Friend Ioana, aka, Iggie. Not a dignified title for a teaching Professor of Film at USC (she blames me for helping make that happen, cheerfully accepted), but a moniker of love and affection, nonetheless.

At the time Playa del Carmen was still a bit rustic, such a sweet little city, bursting with promise and great food, safe as kittens. Our favorite restaurant was 3 blocks away on the corner from the hotel. Open air, seating under the palapas at picnic tables, a grill in the front, and lots and lots of beer. Mucho Cerveza! My favorite menu item was the Grande Pescado, this HUGE whole fish, gutted fresh and tossed on the grill, cooked 5 feet away from you, served with buckets of guacamole and chips. Behind this restaurant we could see festive lights at night, and we went to have a look and found a nativity scene made by the locals, in the same tradition as what I now know as a Creche, as in, yes, (thump head) a nativity scene. I never have fathomed these Christian rituals, the logic of the stories just escapes me, always has, being kicked out of virtually every non catholic Sunday school in my small village by the age of 6 for asking too many of the wrong sorts of questions. A sceptic and and cynic at such a tender age afforded my mother even more reasons to not like me very much, the poor thing. We weren't allowed in the Catholic church at all, banned at the door, apparently.

So we appreciated this sweet, rustic home-made nativity scene, but the baby Jesus was missing, even I knew there was supposed to be one in there. We figured someone stole it or they didn't have money for it. We weren't worried, just baffled. The devil is in the details.

So every time we walked past the nativity scene, we'd stop by to see if they'd found the baby Jesus, and after 3 days of this, we were starting to get worried. It just didn't seem right. We may have discussed buying one, but none were to be had amidst the sombreros and hammocks, well intentioned as we were.

Christmas morning arrived and in our daily stroll to find breakfast, we made our pilgrimage to the creche, and lo and behold, there was the baby Jesus, nearly 5 times bigger than all the other figures in the scene, and with this HUGE head!  He immediately became dubbed 'Hydroencephalitic Baby Jesus'. All I need to do to get a huge snort out of Kidlet is say 'Hydroencephalitic Baby Jesus' in the 'Andy' voice (Little Britain). Memories and laughter are had for at least 10 minutes as we reminisce about one of our favorite Christmas's. Yes, the Baby Jesus arrived, as written in at least one version of the book, on Christmas morning, in keeping with a few traditions somewhere.