For those of you who wonder what the French eat for Christmas dinner, you can check out a small photo gallery here: http://bit.ly/ikkedl - warning, lots of raw food and snails

Now, it is not so easy to define a French Christmas dinner, though certainly most of the French we know have a mainly seafood dinner along with fois gras, a nice Chapon (or something similar), plenty of champagne and a great yuletide log.

very nice, photo - were the mussels raw as well? I think I'd want to know where they came from to eat them like that!

with the mandatory fois gras>

hopefully this type of animal abuse will die out as a part of Xmas dinner will die out - my French friend just said that though many French do abhor the way fois gras is made they still, lamentably, still make it a part of their traditional Xmas Eve dinner.

I love the photos, but in my Lorraine Christmases, we certainly did not have so many seafood items. Oysters at most, maybe a prawn and salmon display, locally gathered snails, but then more likely a leg of lamb or a roast duck.

Each region has its own preferences, even if farmed smoked salmon has smothered France, now the biggest consumer of this product in the world.

Wonderful ! Looks delicious.
A number of those seafood offerings were on our Christmas eve late supper table as well. Our Christmas Day dinner featured more meat and spicier food.

That's a heck of a chunk of foiE gras! It all looks absolutely delicious. But I agree the offerings vary by region. In the Périgord you'd see maybe a couple of seafood items, but more likely a lot more meat. Lovely photos!

Thanks everyone for your feedback.

@annhig - yes, they were raw too. we ordered them from the local poissonier, who told us to come back at a certain time to collect our order. None of us were sick, as everything was very fresh (I find the French are great at seafood).

@PalenQ - it is a tough one. I do not know a single french person who does not eat fois gras.

@kerouac - agreed, hard to define a set dinner as such.

@Mathieu - we had mainly seafood on christmas eve. on Christmas day we had an English Christmas dinner.

@StCirq - yes, definitely by region. In no way was this the definitive french Christmas dinner. Still, it was delicious.

Fabulous! How many people were eating this lovely spread? What is Chapon and what is the stuffing?

Chapon is capon.

I stopped eating raw mussels ever since I was told that there were problems with hepatitis A infection in raw mussels in France a few years ago. Don't know how true, but I just can't enjoy it anymore after that.

I've never even seen raw mussels served in France, or anywhere. Is that typical?

It is fairly common, at least in Southern France where I live.. No plateau de fruit de mer without a few raw mussels.
They are bigger than the moules de bouchots used for cooking.

Love those buche de Noel - Christmas Logs that my French in-laws always have at the just after midnight meal - after the older folk return from the Mass.

@pdx we were 4 adults (the kids ate earlier). The stuffing was a mix of fruits and fois gras.

@DAX/StCirq I usually have raw mussels as part of a seafood platter. Not a huge fan but one of our party is, so we ordered them.

@PalenQ - I forgot to photograph the buche de noel. If I am honest I was crashed out on the couch with a very full belly