Paris Christmas Decorations

One of the most charming parts of visiting Paris in December was seeing various stores and cafes decorated for Christmas. Christmas in Paris is much more understated and tasteful than it is here in the U.S. You won't see giant blow-up Santas or snowmen, you won't hear annoying Christmas music, and you won't see garish flashing lights. You will see lots of natural elements like pine cones, cinnamon sticks, and grapevines. Real pine trees are often simply decorated with a few glass balls. Click on the pictures to see a larger view!

Many cafes are decorated above the awnings so as not to take away valuable table space on the sidewalk.

This cafe intermingled Christmas trees with the regular plants above the awning.

Trunks from birch trees help keep these trees in place and add that natural element that the Parisians like.

Twining grapevines are decorated with red sticks and glass balls in pinks and purples.

Three real trees sit atop curly sticks and gold and silver glass balls hang from ribbons.

I saw lots of trees decorated with flocking in various colors of the rainbow: White, red, purple, blue, and even bright green. The flocked trees would be adorned simply with glass balls in a contrasting color.

Red flocked trees with gold glass balls.

A tiny white flocked tree with blue glass balls adorns the window of a pharmacy.

Many stores and cafes had a single small decoration. Here a simple pine swag is decorated with real cotton bolls and red berries.

I would imagine that these white trees remain up year round. For Christmas, glass balls were added in an unexpected black.

I loved these two kooky Christmas trees that stuck out horizontally above a very narrow sidewalk in Montmartre.