Christmas in Paris might not be snowy white, but it's hard to not be full with christmas cheer if you're in Paris in December. The City of Lights lives up to its name in a big method, as the trees that line the Champs-Elysées are among the various plants in Paris that get covered with strings of lights, and the Eiffel Tower regularly becomes the central place of the night skyline with its sparkling lights.

In actual fact, looking at the christmas lights in Paris is one of the top stuff to do when you're visiting the city in December. The best places to go to explore the Paris christmas lights are along the aforementioned Champs-Elysées, all along the Rue Montorgueil and Rue Mouffetard, in the Place Vendome, in the windows of the large department stores (including the renowned Galeries Lafayette), and at the Notre Dame Cathedral. It's at Notre Dame that you'll additionally get to check out Paris' Christmas tree, and even if you're not a religious character you could do worse than to be present at a Christmas Eve ceremony in the famous church. You can reach all of these sights from Appartment in Paris

A further Christmas tradition in Paris is the temporary ice skating rinks that get arranged around the city. The locations each year might vary, but there are often rinks raised in the place near the Paris City Hall, also known as the Hotel de Ville, and close to Montparnasse. They tend to go up in mid-December and stay open over March, so even if you're visiting Paris later than Christmas you can however take a turn. In general, to go ice skating in Paris on these temporary rinks won't cost you anything, but if you must hire the ice skates that'll be one or two euro.

Attending a ceremony in one of Paris' various churches can be a really great method to spend Christmas Eve, even if you're not a super-religious character at home. And you don't even have to be fluent in French to get the most out of a service - there are several English-speeking ceremonies around the city you can take part in. Sadly, the homepage for the Catholic churches of Paris appears to be totally in French - so you might call for some assistance from a French-native tongue colleague to explain it and locate the English ceremonies, or you could just ask the Paris tourism office or in your Hotel in Paris when you arrive in the city. In addition to attending Christmas mass in Paris' churches, you might furthermore desire to do a tour of the churches for the period of non-service times in order to visit the many nativity scenes they've erected for the time of year.

Christmas in Paris, as well as the rest of France, tends to be a family holiday - which means that rather than giong out for dinner and partying with friends, Parisians are more likely to be eating large meals in comfortable apartments with family and partying privately. Still, for a tourist, Paris at Christmastime can still be delightful - there's a feeling of quiet that you might not discover in Paris at any other period of year (even if don't imagine the streets will be abandoned or anything), and there's something about the manner a city feels when it's preparing for a family holiday that makes it feel warm… No matter what the temperature is on the streets.