Christmas chez Fish&Pips

8th January 2010
Christmas presents

Christmas presents

The chalets were full of brilliant guests over Christmas all of whom were in fine Christmas spirit.  The team had gone to a real effort to make the chalets as festive as possible with homemade decorations and wreaths.  I think a good afternoon of training was taken up with arts, crafts, tea and cake!  It’s tough at F&P.  It’s actually a really nice thing to do for guests and the team, and gets everyone remembering that it’s Christmas as often that gets forgotten out here when running round like headless chickens making sure everyone else’s Christmas is as near perfect as possible.

Christmas table Le Christophe

Christmas table Le Christophe

Unfortunately for our Chalet du Guide guests they never made it out to Meribel because of the problems on the Eurostar, so we hope they managed a wonderful Christmas at home and that they make it back out to Meribel in March.

Every Christmas we’re very lucky to have the lovely owner of Chalet Le Christophe, Caroline, come to stay in the chalet with her amazing 3 children Harry, Sophie and Jack.  They’ve had 3 Christmas’s at Fish&Pips and it wouldn’t be the same without them now.  They’ve ever so kindly taken me under their wing on Christmas Day when I’ve been a Christmas orphan like many other seasonnaires over this time.  I’ve been spoilt rotten with Nick’s superb cooking (even an Aussie can prepare a traditional English Christmas spread to die for) and Abi’s excellent hosting skills in making sure my glass is always topped up.  Am very jealous of guests that have had a whole week in Le Christophe.  This year, however, my family came out and we had Christmas together for the first time in 6 years which was a real treat and I felt like a big child again with lots of presents and that exciting Christmas feeling again.  I think Caroline was probably quite relieved we ate somewhere else as every year she seems to take in more waifes and strays – we even had to add on an extra table to accommodate the extras!

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Christmas Eve was one to remember!  Every year most of our guests go into Meribel centre for the Christmas carols in the square.  However, this year there was a dispute between the musicians and the Tourist Office, and the carols were cancelled.  Typical Meribel politics.  So, Alex from La Tsaretta (our little local pub in Les Allues) took it upon herself to provide Meribel with carols at the last minute.  She whipped up a vat of Vin Chaud (essential), a carol sheet and playlist and even organised some drizzly rain for us.  So, the British contingency of Fish&Pips and Les Allues congregated outside the bar with our damp carol sheets and hot wine and sung our hearts out.  We were missing a verse or 2 and on occassion the music would just cut out as my Dad was belting out a ‘ding dong merilly on high”, but that just added to the charm of it.

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