Holidays in Provence II: Joyeux Noel!

Merry Christmas!
Or, Joyeux Noel, as they say here in France!
This Christmas was a little sad, as I wasn't able to spend it with my family back at home in front of the fireplace and at the beautiful festive dinner table in Princeton, NJ, but I was lucky enough to be able to spend it with Jacqueline, one of my housemates and closest friends on my study abroad program, and Angus. And boy, did we do Christmas right :)
We all got up late on Christmas morning, as we well should have, and Angus was amazing and made us all French toast. We had French toast with apricot jam, raspberry jam, nutella, and butter, with coffee and milk, and we were, of course, in our pajamas...except for Jacqueline. She's always quite put together.
After breakfast, we did presents!!! Much to my surprise, we had quite a few presents under our tiny tree for the three people who were inhabiting the house at the time, and it looked beautiful. I got Jacqueline some pretty lacy tights to go with all of her dresses and heels, I got Angus a much-needed black leather belt, and I received some lovely jewelry and sweaters from my mother, a tin wall-hanging and wooden tulip from Amsterdam from Jacqueline, and the MOST AMAZING hand-made jewelry box made of bubinga wood and brass from Angus.

Then, we all did our own things during the day, getting in touch with our families, relaxing, and got together in the early evening to make Christmas dinner. We had the most delicious and quite extravagant Christmas dinner for a bunch of college students studying abroad. We had so much fun shopping for the ingredients, cooking it, and eating it. It was actually quite rewarding to do it all on our own. I ventured to try and make an apricot-orange reduction as part of our menu, and burned it twice, severely. But, as they say, the third time's a charm, and it was delicious. Here are some images of us in the kitchen:

Let me recount the menu for you:
drink:
- champagne, of course
appetizers:
- deviled eggs with an added touch of mustard and paprika
- toasted slices of baguette with smoked salmon, crème fraiche, capers, and lemon juice on top
main dishes:
- scalloped potatoes au gratin
- magret de canard (duck breast) with an apricot-orange reduction
dessert:
- buche de noel (yule log), not homemade.
I'd say that this would receive a pretty universal "YUM" as a response. And I have pictures as proof of our culinary success.

What a lovely Christmas Day in Aix-en-Provence! Even though I was far away from friends and family at home :)