Stuttgart's Christmas market

We went to our first Christmas market this weekend. More specifically, this was a Weihnachtsmarkt or a Christmas street market in downtown Stuttgart. I don't know how many vendors participate, but probably around 500.

There were so many people there. Being a weekend made it busier than usual I'm sure. I'm learning to hold my ground in Germany. It's certainly not all Germans, but many will just push their way through with no apology. You don't want to be in a crowd here in Germany if you have a short temper, because it does get a little frustrating sometimes.

We really enjoyed our time shopping. It was hard to visit every vendor because there were just so many. Of course there were lots of booths for Christmas ornaments, hand painted bulbs, smokers, nutcrackers and homemade items, but there were almost as many food booths of traditional German food and lots of stollen and sweets. As good as it smelled, we didn't end up eating there because the weather couldn't make up its mind on whether to rain or shine and we didn't feel like eating while getting soaked.

The booths were decorated beautifully. Many had full Christmas scenes displayed on top. We saw a lot of nativity scenes, which was nice. It seems like we don't see them as often in America anymore. I think that's sad since it's the whole reason for celebrating.

There was such a festive, holiday feeling walking through the market. Hearing the Christmas music (which again surprised me because most of the songs were in English), smelling the food, looking at all the booths and just being together was really fun.

Earlier this year we made loose plans to go back to Alaska for Christmas, but I'm glad we stayed here for our first German Christmas. I am enjoying this Christmas so much more than those I spent in Hawaii. At least it's not 80˚outside and thankfully I don't see any palm trees covered in Christmas lights. In a lot of ways I loved Hawaii, but I just never could get into the Christmas spirit there. I am a cold weather girl and love to have that chill in the air during the holidays. We don't have any snow here, but at least it's around 40˚ so I feel like lighting candles and baking cookies.

We did get a few gifts bought at the market. I still have a few more to buy and boxes to mail out. This is just going to be a different Christmas for us, because it's our first overseas. The other day I tried to order three different things for Sam online and could get none of them shipped here. We have an American address, but many stores won't send to APO/FPO addresses. That's been very frustrating. We also don't have department stores to shop in. We basically have the PX which is not huge. Next year we will need to start shopping very early so we can get something sent to my Mom and she can send it on to us. We're making the best of it, but we just know that our gift boxes will most likely be late to our families and we might not get much from each other.

Well, I need to get busy cleaning the house, ordering what I can online and finish baking a few things. Here are a couple more pictures from downtown.

Walking through the street market

Scenes displayed in the top of the vendor booths

This scene of Hansel and Gretel was made up entirely of Legos and was displayed in a storefront window

Nativity scene displayed on top of one of the vendors

Sam in front of the Glühwein vendor. (Glühwein is hot mulled wine)