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Holiday Shopping in Paris is a Dream Come True

© Heather Stimmler-Hall

A shopper's dream, Paris, and the holidays can make even the steeliest of Natives all giddy with delight. The lights, the decorations, the delicate wrappings and colorful parcels, Paris decorated is Paris at its best. You won't mind at all when the cold evenings arrive at just five o'clock, because you can wrap yourself in a ball of this season's fuzzy coats and parkas, and stroll along the extraordinarily illuminated Grands Boulevards, peering into the windows of the Grands Magasins, Printemps and Galleries Lafayette. There are even little wooden platforms erected before these holiday windows so that children can get a glimpse of the magical worlds depicted inside.

The Grandes Magasins The Bon Marché on the left bank and the Samaritaine at Pont Neuf are always wonderful places to browse for the kind of petits bijoux that you can't find back home, and the shop keepers will wrap it up so beautifully for you that it won't matter what's inside! Between shopping for holiday gifts for others, treat yourself to some window shopping on Avenue Montaigne. Just don't look at those price tags!

Christmas Crafts For me, nothing makes the holidays like a good Christmas Market, and this year I've got my eyes on the Quartier Montorgueil. On the weekends between now and Christmas there will be an outdoor market on rue Montorgueil, and another market in the covered Passage du Grand Cerf. In the 5th arrondissement, rue Mouffetard usually throws a good annual "Fête à la Mouff" with its tiny market street strung with lights and decorations and sidewalk vendors.

Holiday Spirit Don't forget to stop and admire the City of Paris' flocked white pine trees in front of all the government buildings. Even better, rent a pair of skates for 30ff and you can melt away the holiday stress with some graceful pirouettes on the ice-skating rink at the Hôtel de Ville. After all, shopping isn't the only highlight of the Christmas season.

What to Buy People always ask me what they should take home from France for their friends. There's the obvious: perfume, scarves, little Eiffel Tower statues and a bottle of wine. But I think there are little things that you can't get anywhere else but here, and they aren't (always) expensive: free sugar packets that say "Daddy Sucre" (at any café), Kindersuprise chocolate eggs with the toy inside (at any supermarché), a can of Fauchon soup (at the Bon Marché epicerie), cool French advertising postcards (free in bars and tabacs), Bourjois cosmetics (inexpensive brand of Chanel's, at any Monoprix), and, my favorite, the free new year calendars from your local commerçants (they pile up around your building's mailboxes). In any case, if you're looking for something you can't find in Idaho or Manchester, stay off the Champs Elysées. If you're brave, explore Paris' newer hip neighborhoods like at Belleville and Abesses, or even Paris's Chinatown in the 13th. As an added bonus, the further from the Louvre and Notre Dame you are, the less expensive that little snow dome will be.

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