When do they start putting up Christmas lights in Paris?
 

I will be going to Paris on the 10th. of November (now I can finally say Next Month!!!) to the 19th., and was wondering if I would see any early Christmas lights and decorations. ??

I spent a Thanksgiving week in Paris and remember that the decorations were going up at Hotel de Ville that weekend, and by Monday eve there were Christmas gift vendors lining the street outside one of the dept stores - fun stuff to buy, too.

Dottee, I think you will have to return to Paris to see the Christmas lights and decorations!

When I went to Paris a few years ago, I remember that I read somewhere lights and decorations go up after - or around 26 November every year. I was lucky - when I arrived on 29 November, I step into a magical world!

We have spent a couple of Thanksgiving weeks in Paris and only once saw a few Christmas decorations going up at that time. It was surprising (and quite nice) not to see the rush to holiday that goes on in the U.S.

I was there last year on the 16th of November and the street lights and XMAS windows were in full swing at Les Grands Magasins (Lafayette, Printemps...) on Haussman

Another nice thing I recall was one pre-dawn when I was up and out walking off the jet lag. Near Notre Dame somewhere on Ile de la Cite I saw two men starting to string some lights on a storefront, trying to get it done before the day's business began I supposed.

In the fog and quiet, as the sky was just beginning to colot, they di the work silently - maybe from routine of several years.

On the same or another morning walk I found a tobacconist/stationery shop on Ile St. Louis that had a great little group of postcards picturing Paris in snow. I'm not sure what the proprietor thought when I bought most of them - probably 50 or so. I began writing a few every time I took a coffee break or when my friends and I stopped for lunch - or whenever there were short waits for someone to show up, etc.

In just a couple of days I had written them all (lucky I had just thrown my address book into my bag before leaving the US) - one stop at the POst and I had achieved a 1st and only: 50 Christmas cards sent before Dec 1 (albeit from France - but yes, they all arrived before Dec. 25)

So, you may be too soon to see Decorations, Dottee, but maybe you can find some Christmas here and there! PS - it snowed about 3" overnight our last night on that trip, so we got to see a small glimpse of Paris dressed in white, even if only on the way to CDG.

Been in Paris several christmases and always disappointed in the lack of substantial Christmas lights - don't expect trip the lights fantastic

best thing to me - the department store windows at Galeries Lafayette and other one next door - huge crowds come here to see the fanciful re-created fairy-tale scenes with moving figures, etc.

biggest Christmas market it seems is at La Defense

Well that's my take - keep expectations down at least in bombastic American sense. Ditto for London IME

The Christmas lights are already going up on the Champs Elysées. But they won't be turned on for another 2 months. It just takes a very long time to put lights in the trees all the way from the Arc de Triomphe to Place de la Concorde.

Thank you everyone for the advice and memories! Tomas, what a lovely idea...now I'm on a mission. I don't think I know fifty people, but I'll mail a dozen to myself. :)

Dottee, I think I've really slipped since that year ... I now seem to send a few cards five minutes before Christmas and not much more than that.

I did get a few Christmas gifts in Paris that year = not scarves nor perfume, but very cute fleece hats and mufflers with a court jester look, from stalls outside one of the dept stores. The nieces loved them.

Dottee: I am envious!! You will be there for the release of the Beaujolais Nouveau on Thursday the 15th. It's fun with bands and food in different places.

As far as the decorations, as others have said, don't miss the stores on Blvd Haussman. One year I came up from the Metro (Franklin Roosevelt I think)on the Champs and saw several flocked C-mas trees on each of the four corners. Sooo pretty.

Thanks for the memory!

The flocked trees are (will be) at Rond Point des Champs Elysées -- the line 9 exit of Franklin.

Gomiki, thanks for the heads-up about the 15th! Wasn't aware of this and now I'm even more excited...:)

Kerouac, thanks for the advice about the flocked trees. If only I knew what flocked trees were. Living on an island in the tropics, I only know from palm trees at Christmas time. But they sound pretty!

Dottee: think frosted, as if they are dusted with snow.

Ah the white-hued Christmas trees - flocked or frosted - i do remember seeing these all over - rather novel.

Yes, trees covered with chemical scum.