{"id":29507,"date":"2018-01-02T05:50:10","date_gmt":"2018-01-02T04:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=29507"},"modified":"2017-12-30T23:44:42","modified_gmt":"2017-12-30T22:44:42","slug":"french-culture-new-years-traditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/french-culture-new-years-traditions\/","title":{"rendered":"French Culture – New Year’s Traditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

On this deuxi\u00e8me jour de janvier<\/strong> (second day of January)<\/em>, I’d like to start off by wishing everyone une tr\u00e8s bonne ann\u00e9e!<\/strong> (a very Happy New Year!) <\/em>New Year’s provides the French with not one, but two more chances to do what they do best . . . celebrate!<\/p>\n

Like most festive French holidays, New Year’s (both le R\u00e9veillon et le jour de l’An<\/strong> \/ New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day<\/em>) feature great food and, of course, Champagne!* Many French New Year’s feasts also feature a (or many!) big platter(s) of freshly shucked hu\u00eetres<\/strong> (oysters). <\/em>Shipped fresh from the ports of la Bretagne<\/strong><\/a> (Brittany), <\/em>les hu\u00eetres\u00a0<\/strong>are a favorite of the French for the holidays**.<\/p>\n

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Un beau plateau d\u2019hu\u00eetres pour le jour de l’An; Bois-Colombes, France, le 1er janvier, 1986.<\/strong> \/ A beautiful platter of oysters for New Year’s Day; Bois-Colombes, France, January, 1, 1986.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Les mois sans ‘r’<\/strong><\/p>\n

While oysters are now consumed year-round, historically eating oysters (and other seafood) in the warmer months could be dangerous for those living far from the shore (no refrigeration meant that delicate seafood could easily spoil in transport). Oysters also reproduce when the water around them gets warm (generally in mid-spring and summer months of mai, juin, juillet, et ao\u00fbt \/ <\/em>May, June, July, and August<\/em>) and some find that oysters are not as good at this this time. These two facts resulted in a common French tradition of avoiding oysters in les mois sans ‘r’\/months without an ‘r’<\/em>!<\/p>\n

This cute video from AirFrance shows some visitors to France getting their first taste of oysters . . . and some other traditions des f\u00eates de fin d’ann\u00e9e <\/strong>(traditions associated with the year-end holidays). <\/em>(The video is largely in English, but if you watch it with the Closed Captioning turned on, you can see the French translations!).<\/p>\n