Advent

Grüβ Dich Dear Reader,

Depending on whether you count down to Christmas according to the church or according to your chocolates, will depend on when you started advent calendar today or a few days ago. I count myself among the chocolate dictated persons and, as such, began my advent calendar this morning. Advent calendars actually originated in Germany, it being the home of both the original idea of counting down from the first Advent Sunday to Christmas by making marks, and as the source of the first ever printed advent calendar as well. It is traditional here to make Advent Calendars for your loved one, and as such my other half has one coming his way made by yours-truly, despite the fact that I lack the artistic talent that my Mother has been blessed with. I just hope he can work out what my attempts at yule tide drawings are meant to be. My Christmas decorations are also beginning to be put up – in particular the string of stockings as an advent calendar from a lovely friend of mine - has been strung out across my bedroom. Truly, my festive season is really beginning...

As is to be expected, I have been frequenting the Weihnachtsmarkt, and have finally gotten around to taking some photos to show you! Unfortunately trying to photograph all the stands with their sparkly lights in the evening does not seem to come out too well, so these are two of the better ones.

This stand is selling traditional wooden decorations, which are very popular here in Germany. The Germans love their wood-related items, and the variety stems out from tree decorations to include candle arches, nativity scenes, and 'Smoky Men', which is where some form of insense is placed inside a little character and the smoke comes out of their mouth!

This is another quite traditional stall by way of its lights. These massive paper stars seem to be very popular and there are quite a lot of variety in terms of size, colour, pattern, numbers of points, etc. Candles and lights are much loved at the Christmas market, and it seems like every second stall has some other variety of illumination method ready for you to gawk at. It feels like getting lost in a winter wonderland each time I go there in the evenings.