I'm always surprised at how much people are worried about eating all the time, or wonder why they eat all the time. You'd think they were climbing Mt Everest or something. People shouldn't need to be eating all the time unless they have some unusual medical condition (I have a nephew with some glucose issues who needs a small snack and can't go too long without food, but that means many hours, not just a couple--and he needs protein not lots of sugar, which is what fruit is).

Christina,

Hypoglycemic individuals need to eat fruit (or a sugar equivalent) every few hours.

Or not. My hypoglycemia disappeared when I changed to a low carb, high protein diet, but our bodies are all individual and what works for me might not work for anyone else.

StCirq, I stayed in South-east Asia for few yrs while working and had to constantly try to bridge language barrier and keep repeating no red meat, no white meat, no fish, no sea food, no fish sauce, no oyster sauce, no chicken stock, no eggs categorically when I used to order food and half the times, it would not be understood. Hence, the worry. But as I said earlier on my thread, I am closing the chapter on food in Paris, I got enough info from you guys. But yes, there are people who do need to eat every 2-3 hours owing to their health condition and then there are some who have restrictions based on religion. Hence, I still get it when some people go out of their way to plan food issues while traveling. I know a perfectly happy go lucky friend of mine who would go berserk if she did not get nutritious food every 3 hours. To each his own :) That is what makes the world what it is :)

Would this advice apply even on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? We're staying in an apartment near the Place Vendome from Saturday Dec 22nd 2012 though the 28th. We'd like to visit a market street/food shops to stock up on cheese, wine, bread, fruit, pastries and maybe a carryout dinner or two in case we do not feel like eating out every night.

Perhaps I am getting paranoid, but I have read a lot about how Christmas is a family holiday for Parisians, and that not a lot of places will be open. A family said on one blog that they ate granola bars out of their backpacks for Christmas dinner because they failed to take into account the holiday closings.
I have also read that one family went to a boulangerie just before Christmas, and Parisians had already purchased a lot of the selection for their own holiday dinners. Some of the Market streets are not open on Mondays, and Christmas Eve is a Monday. So would any of these little shops be open then?

We will be in Paris for one full day before Christmas Eve. We had planned to stop at a market street that day, a Sunday--partly to stock up, and partly for the fun of the experience, but it would be easier if we could make our purchases towards the end of the day, so we didn't have to carry them around all day or backtrack to the apartment to drop them off. But it is hard to find information about how long in the day these places will stay open, especially as a holiday approaches. Also, hard to know if there would be much selection at a later hour.

When would be the best time for us to build in a shopping trip? Obviously, if this ends up being our Christmas Eve dinner, we'd like something a little nicer than a yogurt from a convenience store.

I need a little reassurance, and then I promise to stop worrying about food!