How the French Do Christmas
My first true Christmas in France, 12 years ago, almost didn’t happen. The day before flying to meet my fiancée in Paris, I’d gone to a Walgreens near my parents’ house in central New Jersey to get a flu shot. Though I trust the science, and had been assured this was impossible, within 24 hours of getting jabbed I was convulsing on my mother’s couch with one of the severest fevers and respiratory infections I had ever experienced.

























