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• Paris in November Packing Guide and Weather Outlook
• Best November Events in Paris
• Paris Museums and Galleries

Image: The gardens at the Chateau de Versailles outside Paris are perfect for a romantic, contemplative autumn stroll. ©2006 Zemzina. Some rights reserved under the Creative Commons License.

My mother, who instilled me with a fierce love for Halloween lore and festivities, always asks me if I'm doing anything to celebrate in Paris. "Meh," I inevitably say, "It's just not happening here. I'll probably just end up making pumpkin soup again." In France, I explain, Halloween is a recent import associated strongly with candy companies and "American imperialism", and the spirit's just not there. Also, while France counts regions such as Brittany, whose Celtic roots have infused the local culture with a fair share of legends, superstitions and tall tales, the dominant culture in the country is one of Cartesian logic. I always joke that ghosts don't bother haunting the old mansions and cemeteries of Paris anymore, since no one believes in them anyway.

In short, if you're looking for Halloween fun in Paris, be aware that it's a pretty sparse affair here. However, there are still ways to celebrate the season in spite of the lack of Halloween ambiance.

• Manning Leonard Krull's spirited new site documenting the weird and unusual in the city of light, Cool Stuff in Paris, has an entertaining and helpful guide to Halloween in Paris.
  
  
• This year, historic arthouse cinema Le Champo is hosting a midnight Halloween tribute to American neogothic filmmaker Tim Burton, with a marathon including Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands and Corpse Bride. The festival begins at midnight, so try to get tickets ahead.
  Location: Le Champo Cinemas, 51 rue des Ecoles-- Metro Odéon or Cluny La Sorbonne
  
  
• Finally, All Saint's Day on November 1st is a solemn, peaceful holiday commemorating the dead. At Père Lachaise cemetery, Montparnasse Cemetery or Montmartre Cemetery, a long stroll among the flower-decorated graves is a more culturally authentic way of marking the passage into Autumn.

The Musée du Luxembourg, which is currently running a popular exhibit on legendary American glassmaker Louis Comfort Tiffany, will close its doors for an undetermined period of time after the exhibit ends on January 31st, as part of a planned management change. The French Senate, which oversees the museum, has decided not to renew the current administrator's contract, and has launched a public offer to find a new managing body, a Senate spokeswoman confirmed.

She said the Tiffany show is the last scheduled exhibit, and that the museum would remain closed until a new administrator is awarded the contract. "But this is only a temporary closure," she added.

Another source said 23 people working at the museum are being laid off as a result of the shuttering. Despite continuing to attract strong crowds for exhibits like Vlaminck and the Berardo Collection, the museum, which is Europe's oldest and was opened in 1750 as France's first state-run collection of paintings , has been suffering from slashed budgets this year, a Senate document said.

Wine lovers, take note: Le Tour d'Argent, one of Paris's "crème de la crème" restaurants, is looking to get rid of thousands of bottles from its massive collection of wines, champagne and other specialties. According to CNN, the cellar will be auctioning off around 18,000 items from its collection of 450,000 bottles in Paris on December 7th and 8th, hoping to raise over $1 million to revamp the historic restaurant. Some of the bottles are hardly drinkable but will be coveted by collectors as artifacts: the collection includes a 1788 cognac and a bottle of champagne dating to 1815. These will obviously not be accessible to most of us, but some of the more modest "crus" are expected to go for as little as $30 for several bottles, according to CNN.