Christmas Markets

Let me start this post with some necessary disclosure: We don't celebrate Christmas.

Actually, we don't really celebrate holidays at all. Greg grew up primarily celebrating Jewish holidays and I hate holidays for personal reasons. I don't talk about religion, so we'll keep this short and sweet.


A lot of people we met here told us that their favorite part of living in Germany was the Christmas Markets. Basically, a Christmas Market is the exact same thing as the festivals they have from Spring until Fall except they serve gluhwein instead of beer. Gluhwein is essentially just mulled wine. It comes in red, white and apple, as well as some other regional types. (Greg swears they all taste like Tamiflu, which I don't understand because I thought Tamiflu was only available to adults in capsules...?) We both agree that apple is the best of the bunch, but is still basically just hard spiced apple cider. You could probably get the same experience from warming up some Strongbow.

Our first Christmas Market experience was last weekend in our town. We met some friends down there and it was a pretty good time. Christmas markets, unlike the festivals of summertime, are more similar to craft fairs. There are a lot of vendors selling overpriced trinkets. I'm okay with admitting that I am extremely cheap and would never partake in buying things other than food at a Christmas market. The food, however, is pretty similar to anything that you'll get at any festival all over Germany. We had, you guessed it, bratwurst with curry ketchup on a roll. They were serving lamb wurst the night we went, which was a nice change of pace. They were also selling potato pancakes with applesauce which we had to get since we didn't make latkes at all this year. Aside from that, we drank some gluhwein, hung out with some friends and walked home. Pretty average festival night.

This weekend, we went to nearby Frankfurt for their Christmas market which was massive. However, it was the exact same ordeal, just different scenery. Same booths and trinkets, same food, same giant crowd. It was a fun time but honestly, I'm totally unimpressed with the whole Christmas market thing. I'm actually shocked that people find Christmas markets to be the most enjoyable part of Germany. The weirdest part to me is that people around here actually go around visiting different town's Christmas markets all through December. I can understand going to the local ones within your area, but I wouldn't be willing to take a trip from where we live to say, Munich, just to go to a Christmas market. No thank you. I could get the same trinkets and bratwurst here within the three major cities in my area.

Basically, Christmas markets can be fun for the experience of drinking outdoors, but we weren't impressed by them at all. Festivals in the summer are much more enjoyable for us because they are less focused on purchasing things and more on enjoying yourselves. The festivals we went to during the warmer months typically had entertainment, rides for children and a greater variety of foods and drinks. However, it may be that others find so much enjoyment in Christmas markets because they have an over-all love of Christmastime in general, but that's obviously not us.


Next week, we plan to skip out on the Christmas market scene in order to spend money somewhere that I'd much rather: Ikea. Back in Colorado, Greg had a nice locker at work to store all of his Army nonsense. Since we've moved here, his Army stuff has slowly spilled from our tiny closet, to our bedroom, to our spare bedroom and is now taking up all of our storage space. My goal before going back to work full time is to organize our mess and hopefully get rid of some of the junk we've accumulated. I know I haven't officially announced it, but I will be finally going back to work full time very soon. Once I have the paperwork in hand and details about my start date, I'll give more information on my new position. I will go ahead and say that I am VERY excited to go back to work doing something that I love.

Greg did light the candles for Hanukkah one night this year, but sadly no latkes.

Local: Rheingau Wine Festival

Today marks the last day of one of the biggest festivals in our city. Rheingau is an area of Germany around the Rhine river known for it's Riesling. I'm not a fan of Riesling because I think it's entirely too sweet, but considering we live in an area known for a particularly wine, it felt necessary to go to the fest.

When I try to describe German festivals to friends or relatives back in America, it's almost impossible. In America, a festival is generally more of a craft fair dedicated to selling random overpriced homemade trinkets in a park or maybe based around a parade. Food served at an American festival is mostly deep fried sweets of some kind that cost about 20 cents to make and are sold for closer to $5. In America, everything is catered towards families and festivals are usually overly "kid-friendly" in that they often center around some sort of entertainment for children, are completely alcohol-free and end by 7 pm. I've never heard of anyone between the ages of 12-40 being excited about going to a festival in America. And why would they? American festivals are boring.

In Germany, when a town is having a festival, it's typically positioned right in the downtown of the city and often requires closing down several main streets for days or weeks on end. Vendors will be out most of the day and pretty much all night. German festivals are almost always centered around food and drinking. Whole squares and streets will be filled with tables and surrounded by places to buy fresh made wurst, pasta, pizza and kettle cooked chips. In certain areas, you can sit and be served like a giant outdoor restaurant. There will usually be a stage with a band covering some American music with thick German accents. Children are welcome and free to play in the open grassy areas, but you won't always find much entertainment for them. Some festivals will have areas with fair rides, but not always. People go all out for these events, too. You'll usually see them dressed as if they are attending a wedding or church service while they're maneuvering through the huge crowds of people who turn up for the fest. When you show up in jeans and a t-shirt, everyone knows you're American.

I don't think Americans can wrap their heads around the concept of German festivals for a vast number of reasons. The main one being that this kind of event would probably be in some way illegal in America. People drinking and smoking in public around small children seems outrageous in the States. Closing businesses for what's deemed as a "party" is practically scandalous. One person would complain because it was too loud or not safe enough, and the whole event would be cancelled. Americans aren't taught to control themselves. They don't teach their children how to behave in what is deemed as adult situations. We cause this separation in having a family and enjoying yourself. I remember living near Savannah, Georgia in college and every year when St. Patrick's Day came around, Savannah's streets became flooded with drunk college students partying along the river to the point of throwing up or blacking out. There were areas of the city sectioned off as almost a "family friendly" zone. You could take your kids to one area of the city to have their faces painted and ride a little green train in a circle or you could go down to River Street and drunkenly throw up into a dyed green river (so long as you weren't double-fisting, because that's still illegal). There's no middle ground. Festivals, especially ones dedicated to a particular kind of alcohol, will never work in American culture, so we have to enjoy them in Europe while we can. As I've heard others here say, "Americans would take something wonderful and ruin it."

Aside from the wine fest, we ventured out even a little more by getting sushi. It seems ridiculous that we would consider that venturing out, but ordering food is always a terrifying experience for us. I've picked up on enough words to know when something is beef or pork and I know how to recognize if a dish is made with salmon or tuna rather than shellfish. That seemed reason enough to try ordering sushi! It wasn't a total disaster, but it didn't go very well either. We thought we were going to a place that a friend recommended which was more English friendly, but we were wrong. After lots of pointing and confusion, we got something that we didn't mean to order from a very sweet waitress who was trying her best to please us. So, we ate it and felt like idiots for not being able to communicate better. I've picked up a little bit of German, but I doubt I'll ever feel fully comfortable walking into a restaurant and ordering food.

In other news, being back to work has been great. In February, I'll be starting a program to become a certified lactation consultant. I wish I could be working full time rather than part-time, but anything helps at this point. I'm happy to be able to keep my skills up and continue to learn new things while also living abroad. We are definitely much luckier than most!