It was nearly Christmas, a few months after I had first moved to Paris, and I was dating my first French boyfriend. <\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

On a weekend trip to his hometown, we had somehow found ourselves entangled in a group of locals\u2014friends and friends of friends from the area\u2014spending the afternoon hanging around the flower farm where they worked. It seemed almost impossibly quaint to me, an American transplant with barely a year of expatriation under my belt, but I was about to be charmed even further. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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As the sky began to dim, we piled into cars and drove down the road. There, boxes upon boxes of fairy lights and cedar wood paneling were slowly being unpacked, a Christmas market<\/a> just beginning to take form. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

We lent a hand where we could: building stalls, decorating stands, and just as my hands were starting to grow too cold for comfort, I was offered a steaming cup of something that smelled of spices and cherry and something else I couldn\u2019t identify.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cC\u2019est quoi?\u201d<\/em> I asked, as I took a sip, finding the beverage slightly sweet and tantalizingly warming.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\u201cVin chaud,\u201d<\/em> I was told. Hot wine.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n