The multigenerational ski holiday is one of the most ambitious things a family can attempt. Four generations, four different ideas of what a perfect day on the mountain looks like. The teenagers who want to disappear into the off-piste. The grandparents who want the mountain without the pressure. The youngest who isn't sure about any of it yet. And the person holding it all together, who deserves a morning to herself more than anyone.
Get it right and it becomes something the family talks about for years. The kind of holiday that earns its place in the story of who you are together.
Méribel makes it easier than anywhere else we know.
The morning begins with a kind of organised dispersal. The teenagers and their father leave early with a private ski guide - off-piste, into the Three Valleys terrain that doesn't appear on any piste map. The youngest head to ski school, nervous at the door and full of confidence they've nailed the pizza by pickup. The grandparents take the Altiport blues at their own pace, which on a mountain like this, is the best pace of all. And the mother - who planned the week, booked the flights, and remembered everyone's ski boot sizes, retreats to the chalet sauna, then a massage. Nobody knows where she is. Nobody needs to.
The mountain pulls them back together at half past twelve, each arriving with a different morning behind them.
The driver drops the non-skiers at the door. Le Blanchot sits in a clearing entirely its own - a traditional alpine chalet swallowed by snow-laden firs, invisible from the mountain above, the kind of place you'd never find unless your concierge pointed you there. A terrace packed with skiers, poles stacked outside. Inside, steam rises off heads and jackets before anyone has sat down. A fireplace. A daily menu from the chef. The grandparents are already there, the youngest comes in still mid-sentence about the morning. Through the window, a Piper Cub lifts off the Altiport and banks left over the treeline. The children find this more interesting than anything on the menu.
The afternoon is for all of them together. The guide takes the whole group across the runs connecting Méribel into the wider Three Valleys - a pace that works for everyone, a route that asks something of everyone. In the golden hour, the light turns the snow amber so begins the descent back down to the village.
Back at the chalet, there is cake of course and entirely the kids favourite part of a chalet holiday.
By 6pm the family makes its way to the toboggan run. 3.4 kilometres, 470 metres of descent, 28 corners, headtorches on. Three generations on sledges. Someone goes sideways. Someone, 'the grandfather' proves considerably more competitive than his morning on the blues suggested. The youngest screams the whole way down and immediately wants to go again.
It is, improbably, the high point of the day.
Back at the chalet, the table is already set. The chef and host are here for one reason, to make sure this evening is one the family doesn't forget. Candles lit. Something on the board that wasn't there this morning. The mother is in the sitting room, finally, with her book. The chalet team moves around her without a word. She does not look up.
Afterwards, someone produces a Monopoly board. The rules are contested immediately. The grandfather is formidable. The youngest is bankrupt early and refuses to leave the table. The teenagers are too immersed to look at their phones, until the argument over Park Lane pulls everyone fully back in.
At some point the fire is just embers.
The day, eventually, is over.
Tomorrow, the group has other plans. A husky sledge through the forest above Méribel. And, somewhere in between, an après ski that nobody will be entirely sure how to explain on the journey home. But that's another day.
