Mosel-Wein Nachts Christmas Markt

Hi there. This is Big sis and I'm going to tell you all about me and my families adventure to the Mosel-Weinhachts Markt. In German, Frohe Weihnachten means Merry Christmas. And so if you put the two and two together, the Mosel-weihnacht market is the Mosel Christmas Market. 

So in school, my German teacher gives us the project of having to go out and do individual field trips to German locations to practice our German. Last quarter, I had to go to a fall festival, and that was a total flop. But, this quarter, we had to go to a Christmas market to practice our German in different types of conversation. I hated it at the time, but now that I look back, these field trips were super helpful. 

Anyways, mom was in the states, and dad really wanted to help me with this project, so we drove an hour to this super awesome Christmas market that had a whole bunch of really good reviews. So we went to the market for my project plus to go Christmas shopping for mom and just for fun. 

When we got to the city, we parked the car and walked across this big bridge to the other side of the river. The market was in an underground cellar, and was split into 4 different sections. We went to section 1-3. 

Inside there were shoppers selling all kinds of super cute German trinkets and another section had all kinds of fun foods. We stopped at this wood stand that had a very large variety of nativity scenes and cute German decorations. 

I did my little project at this stand and spoke in German to ask how much certain items were, and also bought a cute little creche for mom. As we walked around a little more, we came by an ornament store. The old lady that ran the stand was super nice and I talked with her and we bought 6 small ornaments and an old man painted our names onto the ornaments. This was another one of the gifts that we were going to give to mom. 

After walking around that particular part of the market, we walked out of the cellar and went into another one. We got kinder punch. The cup was super cute and is one of the very few mugs that we have that we actually really enjoy. 

We walk around a bit longer to explore around the city square and see all the cute and tiny German houses. I don't know if I've already said this, but German houses always look like they're from a fairy tale. I love Germany so much. 

It started to get a little late, so we headed back over the bridge, up to the car, and headed back home. This Christmas market was so much fun and it was a triple win because I finished my project, we got mom Christmas presents, and we had lots of fun in a new and amazing Christmas market. 

St. Wendel's Medieval Christmas Market

Christmas Markets are "The Thing" to do during November and December here in Germany.  There re so many Christmas Markets that it is overwhelming picking which ones to visit.  We also learned a little too late that each one is open during a specific time and only particular weekends.  We missed a few due to missing the dates that they are open.  We also had so many commitments on almost every weekend that it made it hard to make it to any Christmas Markets.  However, we did make it to St. Wendel's Christmas Market.  We started by finding an area where miniature houses had been made.  Some of the houses had moving people or parts.  Monster really liked the moving miniature house display, but the other kids all thought they were a little creepy.

St. Wendel's Christmas Market was so huge.  It went down this street and went on forever.  We were told that there is a man made sledding hill that kids can ride a tube down for free, so that was my number one destination.  While searching for the tubbing hill we walked past hundreds of little booths selling things from little villages, ornaments and food to knick knacks, snacks and Christmas gifts.  The different booths were really fun to see.

We wanted to try some of the local food, so we got some crepes and then some small tube things that tasted like churros.  It wouldn't be a Christmas Market without trying the Kinderpunch.  So we got a few glasses to share.  It tasted like hot fresh berries and cider.  We all really liked the Kinderpunch.

After walking around a good hour we finally found the sledding hill.  The kids went down twice each and had a blast.  Kevin went down with Monster and it was pretty hard getting him away from the snow hill.

We kept exploring after the sledding hill and found another huge area of booths.  These booths all had more medieval and antiques things being sold.  The kids were super excited because they found an archery range, we let all the kids shoot off about 5 arrows each.  Even Monster took a try at the bow. All the kids said they missed the Archery Cafe after they each took a turn.

It was getting really late, and it was so extremely cold, so we decided to try to find our way back to our car.  We did take the time to walk slow and check out the booths and merchandise as we passed.

Other than being super freezing, we all loved the Christmas Market.  It was fun to see the variety of food products and homemade items all being sold.  We even saw a Harry Potter booth in which all the kids went bonkers.  I enjoyed it, but I did not enjoy the kids all begging for different things.  Next time, I just need to have the kids earn money beforehand, then let them buy whatever they want with the money they earned.  I think I will make it more enjoyable.  

Bernkasel-Kues Christmas Market

Hi guys. This is Big sis and I'm gonna tell y'all all about our adventure to the Bernkasel-Kues Christmas market!

I do have to say that the village looks much more different than what it looked like in the summer time. It looked so much more cute and more like a little winter wonderland. 

After we arrived, we just explored around the very big street of Christmas stands and a huge square of life size German Christmas decorations. 

While walking around and looking at everything, we found a house that looked so festive. As we got closer, we realised that it wasn't just any house, it was a huge house that was the towns advent calendar. 

Everyday, in December, at 7:00 pm, they would open one of the windows and display a painting of a Disney character. Before the reveal of the picture for that day, two old men would come out and sing German Christmas carols, concluding with a certain song that everyone seemed to know by us, and that day would be removed and the picture for that day was placed in the window. Fun tradition to participate in every night! Today, when we saw them display the new picture, which was Elsa and Anna from the movie "Frozen". It was funny to see the other 6 pictures on the house.

I did however wonder what it looked like completely filled up with Disney character. That would be something really funny to see. While walking around the town square, we found some little stands with kinder punch. What me and M&M found out was that every town had its own special twist to the kinder punch. Our town had the extra flavor of orange, another town's was pomegranate. This town was cherry. It's so much fun tasting all the different versions of the punch in different towns.

It's also super fun because we can keep the cups and each cup is different depending of the town. We have collected many different mugs. I don't think that we will need any new hot chocolate mugs for a while. Haha. 

One the way back to the car, because it was starting to get extremely cold, we found a huge life size German candle windmill. it mini form, it is a decoration usually only found in Germany and is made of wood with little decorations on the inside, often a scene of the nativity. And when you light the candle underneath the little windmill hands, it spins. 

As we were leaving, Monster really wanted to go on the merry-go-round, so he went on it for a ride. Once monster's ride was done we called it a day and went back home with some kinder punch mugs, and the Christmas spirit. Merry (early) Christmas!

  

France: An Anniversary in Strasbourg

Hey, Kev's here! For our 17th anniversary this year I thought to myself "How could I make this the most special anniversary yet?" Since moving to Germany a few months ago we had gone on trips to Belgium with the kids, have Austria secretly planned for Christmas (with kids) and London next year (with kids). Not dissing the kids, but man a trip just ourselves sure would be nice, but how?

So then came the striking idea: FRANCE! We haven't been there, but Paris would be to far away. Well since Christmas spirit is alive here now, and polling the best Christmas markets to attend, I heard about Strasbourg, and joyfully we could drive there and it was only 2 hours away! Win, so off we went. 

We situated the kids with promise of bribes and took off. We were so excited when we crossed the bridge in the middle of no where and crossed over into France: picture worthy moment! We had to snap this real quick because there was a semi truck coming! 

Strasbourg is a beautiful city in France, quant and pretty, and luckily today it wasn't unbearably cold. Unfortunately Heather had forgotten to take a dramamine before we left, and thanks to a million back road switchbacks so she was horribly sick. You can't tell it from the pictures but she felt horrible. So after finding a pharmacy, we bought something similar to dramamine and hoped for the best. She's such a trooper!

Talk about a super cute town. Everything was decorated primarily for the Christmas Market. We loved seeing the huge decorations over the restaurants and businesses.

Owing to my affinity for Cathedrals, we stopped first at Cathedral Notre Dame de Strasbourg. It was started in 1015 and took 424 years to finish, and for 227 years it held the record for the tallest building. It still does hold though the record for the highest extant structure built entirely in the Middle Ages. What's crazy though is that this church is one of the churches that had 74 of its stained glass structures stolen by the Nazis, and recovered and returned to the church by the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives section of our military in the U.S. In case you haven't seen The Monuments Men it's worth it describing this adventure! What I love about this picture though is the tapestries. They are gigantic and 600 years old!

Inside during the Christmas season was the joy of the many creches and nativities that were on display. They highlighted many of the events during the nativity.

So this cathedral is famous for the astronomical clock. It's the 3rd clock that has been in this location since 1681, but this current clock has been there since 1843. It has a working perpetual calendar, orrery, which is a planetary dial, a display of the moon and the sun and the solar and lunar eclipses, all on one clock that spans three stories high. It has 18 inch figures of the Savior and his apostles, to include a life size rooster that crows three times at solar noon. This thing was huge and incredible to see.

Of course the outside architecture was amazing and so detailed as you can see from the prior front doors used a long time ago.

After going around more of the outside and seeing of the different sides of the cathedral we realized that it literally was the center of the Christmas market. We visited the different shops, enjoyed some crepes (yep - crepes in France) and some other fun little shops.

As the day progressed it so so nice to just spend time together, without the kiddos. Unfortunately the medicine we got for Heather didn't work well, and after a very well endured afternoon of nausea, we decided to call it and went home. So it was a shorter day, but just wonderful to spend time with my best friend! Happy 17th anniversary Love!