Many years ago I visited friends on a farm near Toulouse in southwestern France for the holidays. On Christmas Eve we attended Midnight Mass in the small village church, a religious custom now rapidly declining in a secular France. After that we had a strictly traditional Christmas reveillon—one that definitely stuck to the rules. Late, celebratory and alcoholic.
The first course of oysters and escargot was accompanied by Champagne. We then had an extended foie gras course since it was foie gras season in nearby Dordogne and they had bought plump, fresh livers at a Perigord market the previous day. The accompanying wine was a sweet and pungent Sauternes. This was followed by goose—a complicated one in which the neck was stuffed and roasted with the bird. We drank a simple red wine produced from vines there on the farm. The circumstances were so perfect that I would not have traded that wine for a great vintage Chateau Latour. Dessert was La Buche de Noel, the creamy cake that resembles a Yule log. I can’t remember what we drank with that, and I doubt very much that anyone else at the table could.
It was a lovely pampering holiday, and why not? Christmas is a time to indulge your tastes and your budget, to drink old favorites or experiment with new wines. Why not create new Christmas reveillons?