I don’t think it’ll come as too much of a surprise to many of you that I don’t love cold weather. So Adam quickly figured out the only way he was going to get me to take part in the tradition of Christmas Markets was to buy me thermal underwear and mulled wine. And take part we did. More in a moment, first a little history lesson I’ve learned on the origins of Christmas markets from various tourist information depots and books.

Various cities have proclaimed themselves as the originators of the tradition. There are records of “Wintermärkte” (winter markets) held across what is now Germany and Austria in the late 1200’s & early 1300’s with some notable mentions in Munich in 1310 and Frankfurt in 1393. In Vienna in 1296, Duke Albrecht I authorized 14-day fairs in the month of December, but despite the timing of these festivities, the fairs weren’t directly connected to Christmas and did not appear to be religious in nature. Then later, in 1384, Wenceslas IV, king of Bohemia, gave the city the right to hold a free market, allowing butchers to sell meat until Christmas. (Sing it with me, “Good King Wences'las looked out, on the Feast of Stephen …”) It’s apparently debated if King Wencelas’ decree constituted an actual “Christkindlesmarkt” - literally “Christ child market”' in German - or if it was still just a winter market. Dresden’s Chiskindlemarkt quite proudly proclaims its title of “the oldest Christmas market in Germany.” They first held theirs in 1434. While the Nuremberg Christkindlesmarkt, which began around 1628 declares it is the longest continuous Christmas Market.

In the 16th-century, markets saw an increase in popularity thanks to the teachings of Martin Luther. Prior to this time, gifts were traditionally exchanged on the saint’s days of St. Nicholas or St. Martin. However, Luther wished to turn away from the Catholic devotion to saints, and so he suggested the birth of Christ as a more appropriate day for gift-giving. He told his children that “Holy Christ” had brought them their gifts, or rather, the Christkind, which translates directly to “the Christ child” but usually refers to an angel-like “spirit of Christmas” rather than the literal Christ Child. Over the years, this fictional “Spirit of Christmas” took on form as a sort of angel, first being depicted in Christmas plays as either male or female, and later exclusively as female. Today, many Christmas Markets’ opening ceremonies include an appearance by the Christkind, often acted out by a local girl.

Luther’s tradition quickly took hold among protestant families who also began exchanging gifts on December 24th. As this custom spread, many winter markets began calling themselves Christkindlmarkts, especially in the south of Germany. The churches – who had originally encouraged markets to be held nearby in order to draw more visitors to services – soon found themselves competing for attention with the bustling markets. In fact, one guide we had told us of a priest in Nuremberg who, in 1616, complained that he was unable to hold the afternoon service on Christmas Eve because no one was in attendance – his congregation was shopping at the market. In the words of Olivia, Whoopsie doodles.

So today every city, small town or village will have a Christmas Market at some point in the advent season. The large city ones - Zurich, Basel, Dresden, Salzburg, Rothenburg - stay open most of the season, many of the smaller ones are really just for that community and are only open for a long weekend. A really fun part of most of them is they’ll have a commemorative mug for their market and as part of your purchase you put a deposit down on the mug. If you like it, keep it, if you have enough Christmas mugs, return it for your deposit back. We were 50/50, we kept a couple that we really liked, we returned several which were just so so.

The joy of living here is we open the newspaper on Thursday and there's a list of which ones are coming up so we can plan our weekend appropriately. What we also learned this year is you can get seriously overwhelmed by trying to visit every market. While we had a blast, we will pace ourselves better next year and enjoy some of the smaller town hidden gems. But we have time to plan that out - for now, here’s where we visited this year!

Zurich

We took the train in and it started snowing as we traveled. Now that I’m home and warm and dry again, it was magical. Not going to lie, I was a little cranky at the time. As was someone else who didn’t like being cold and really wanted lunch.

We recovered after lunch and even found a DOUBLE DECKER carousel!

All told, it was beautiful.

Buchs

This one was probably my favorite, arguably because it was the closest to home (Buchs in just across the border from us in Switzerland & where Charlotte goes to school) so I could get warm again the fastest, but I like to think I liked it the most because it was the least commercialized one, the true village market style of the Christmas Markets.

There’s smiles all around when Glühwein and merry-go-rounds are involved!

or if Dad carries you while you eat pizza…

or when Canadian rapper Drake sells you a Zimt-Zucker (cinnamon sugar) Crepe from his Las Vegas Crepe stand in Switzerland.

10/10 Buchs! We’ll see you again next year.

Lindau

Lindau in general is a really cute town. It’s on the eastern side of Lake Constance (the Bodensee in German). Their market is on the harborfront so it’s beautiful (while cold!) to walk around.

They also proved you can make anything out of chocolate!

This is just outside the market and is a beautiful building. I did no research on it, so I can’t tell you anything about it. What I will always remember from this picture is that I’d forgotten to pack Charlotte a scarf so she’s wearing mine and Olivia is saying “Mama I cold. I need food.” on repeat.

One of them got happier with lunch…

I got happier with…

What I apparently took no pictures of, but loved about this market was in addition to all the traditional stalls, Lindau had a Christmas playground. Of which Adam could stand and watch the girls while I did browsing (and not having to repeat ‘don’t touch. Look with your eyes not your fingers’ a couple thousand times). The playground worked it’s typical magic…

Finally we did a couple nights away and did a longer road trip where we visited markets in Konstanz (Germany), Baden-Baden (Germany) and Strasbourg (France).

Konstanz

I swear this market was made for Christmas card photos. It’s actually on the other side of the lake from the Lindau market, so you can take a ferry between the two if you’re adventurous.

(yes, my children did go in tutus to the Christmas market…pick your battles!)

We had some lunch and our obligatory glühwein.

(the other cup was Adam’s, not Charlotte’s - promise)

And we found ANOTHER carousel.

don't mind the naked mermaid on the children's ride, it's Europe, this is normal

Baden-Baden

Someone took a nap on the way to the market…and it showed.

The other one decided a jelly donut was the best breakfast she’d ever had.

It was super rainy the day we visited. On one hand burr; on the other, we had the place to ourselves!

They have a town competition of nativity scenes. There were close to 50 on display throughout the market. They were just scattered around the booths and tables so it was a fun scavenger hunt to look for all of them.

Also, for the town’s sustainability goals, their Christmas Tree lights were not powered by electricity this year. (Or it was a fun tourist gimmick, you decide)

Strasbourg

This one was so big we split it over two days. We first went in the evening while it was still super rainy, then went back again the next morning when it was a bit dryer and we had a daylight advantage. I’m glad we did both though because it let us see all the sides of the market.

In most cities, it seemed like the market was the focal point of the Christmas activities, but in Strasbourg, the whole city was one big magical Christmas playground, with decorations galore and lighted walkways connecting the different markets. The city boasts 300 chalets (stalls) in 15 different markets spread throughout the city – a huge record for any city we visited!

We even bumped into friends of ours from Texas who now live about a mile from us in Liechtenstein and we didn’t realize they’d be there at the same time we were. How crazy, small world is that!?!