December 21st
A tree, carried through the lanes
The welcome at the door came with local intelligence: which stand at the market sells the good trees, and the trick of carrying one home through lanes built for handcarts. The children took the top, the father took the trunk, and half the old town offered advice en route. By nightfall the tree stood dressed by the sea-view windows of Pantai.
First dinner three minutes away, coats on, outside under the heaters — because even in December, the old town eats in the open air.
Every morning
The market in its winter clothes
Two minutes from the door, the Marché Provençal spent the week supplying the house: clementines with their leaves on, oysters for the 24th, the santon figures the children chose one by one for the crib. The stallholders knew the family’s order by the third morning, which is the entire point of staying a week.
Late mornings belonged to the ramparts — winter light, empty stones, the Alps in snow across the water.
December 24th
The long table
Christmas Eve was cooked at home, in Pantai’s big kitchen, from the morning’s market — and eaten slowly at a table that would not be cleared for hours. Midnight mass at the cathedral, two lanes away, for those who wanted it; the walk home through the lit lanes converted even the sceptics.
Stockings went up over the fireplace. Some houses simply know how to hold a Christmas; the seventeenth century built well.
December 26th
Snow in the morning, sea in the afternoon
The day after Christmas, the family drove ninety minutes up into the hinterland for a morning of sledging in real snow — and was back on the ramparts for the four o’clock light, gloves still in pockets. Only this coast offers that particular double.
Dinner that night was leftovers, by unanimous vote, at home.
December 31st
Fireworks over the bay
New Year’s Eve composed itself: early dinner in the old town, then the sea wall with a crowd of locals for the fireworks over the bay, the children on shoulders, the boats sounding their horns in the dark. Home in four minutes, cocoa for some, champagne for others, the year changed from the terrace.
The verdict, written to us afterwards: the easiest Christmas the family had ever hosted — because the town did the hosting.
Our Christmas guide
