Day 173, 24 December 2012, Tignes, France - Christmas Eve! Oh What a Day.... Late December back in '63.... OK enough of the soundtrack. In Europe, Christmas Eve is the big deal and it doesn't come much bigger than at Club Med Tignes. We arrived at the restaurant for breakfast to the sound of singing Elves - pointy hats, pointy shoes, trousers with fur trim. Definitely elves - freshly squeezed orange juice (pretty darn busy elves too - apparently they'd finished the presents early and were re-tasked to the kitchens). All the Christmas capering however couldn't quell the nerves - first time out on skis does that to us. We got our boots on and headed out into a gorgeous sunshiney day - loads of blue sky, mountains and snow as far as the eye could ski (sorry... see). We looked a bit like new born foals finding their feet on the first tentative run from the resort down to the lift - but after a couple of runs it all came back and we joined a group lesson and headed out to explore. James was with one group and I was in another - he was lucky enough to see Mont Blanc in the distance (one of his group asked if that was something to do with the pens... yep. They named the mountain after the pen....) He also saw the eye of the needle (pictured - sourced on internet - too busy skiing for photography) - which I will have to go and see later in the week. I took a couple of lifts up the mountain and even felt my ears pop - I felt like I was getting close to the roof of the sky. Skiing itself was huge fun and great to be back into it - but damn, it's hard work after almost a year. James pushed on til the end of the day, but since my calves were singing opera I called it a day at lunchtime and lazed around the resort in the afternoon - we are very impressed with the concept of gluhwein as we came off the slopes. Fairly sure no one ever gets injured in these parts because the constant drinking makes you floppy on impact! We spent a couple of hours in the bar, more for quality control purposes than anything. Obviously it's up to us to ensure the bartenders can actually make every cocktail on the menu. (INCLUDED... what can I say.... we'll be starving and drinking council gin for the 10 days in Scotland over New Years). The ski school instructors provided our early evening entertainment (immediately after the elves on the dancefloor show and just before dinner) - it looked like 200 or more were involved and they skied down the mountain in front of the resort with flaming torches - incredible - even finished off with fireworks into the starlit night sky. It was essentially a river of fire as they skied and looped and turned in an undulating "S" down the slopes right in front of us. Well worth almost certain hypo-thermia from standing out in the snow in evening wear! We eventually slithered into the restaurant for dinner and a warmup. It turns out seafood was the theme for Christmas Eve - oysters freshly opened in front of us (particularly tired looking Elf doing that... think he'd been at it since orange juice time), mussels, salmon, lobster. Sleighloads of les fruits de mer coming from all directions. Was a lovely Christmas Eve and the partying was just getting underway as we returned to our cosy home away from home - 7 nights in one place - utter luxury.