Today marks the official beginning of the Lausanne Christmas season! The lights in the city will be turned on this evening, and the market in St. Francois (such as it is) opens as well.

There is a lot of information about what will be going on during the next month or so on the Noel Lausanne website. Some items of note:

• Stores will be open late on selected evenings: the 17th, 19th and 23rd of December shops will be open in the city centre until 22h, and on the 24th they will operate using a Saturday timetable. You can see all the Christmas opening hours in this pdf.
• There are a large number of animations and other things of interest going on during the holiday season, ranging from pony rides for the kids and a visit from Saint Nicholas, through to live jazz music in the evenings at the Christmas market, and even a free rock concert with (apparently) free mulled wine! See the entire list of activities and entertainment here.
• I've not seen the Living Nativity presentation before, but I do know they use live camels! (I saw them walking through Place de la Riponne last year.)
• The days of late shopping there are also Christmas Carolers singing in the city centre. The Choirs are excellent.
• As in previous years, there will be outdoor ice skating in Flon from Dec. 6th to Feb. 22nd. Cost is only 5.- CHF to rent skates. Opening times are shown here. And of course (this being Switzerland, after all) they'll be selling fondue there as well.

I'm planning on organising an after-work social in the Christmas market one evening where we can all grab a vin chaud and listen to the jazz bands. More on that once I pick a day.

Joyeuses Fêtes à tous !

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