Alright, alright. I know. I can’t just write about the weird and creepy festive and cultural phenomena going down this month.
Dearest reader, this instalment in what appears to be a series on holiday markets happily features the Vancouver Christmas Market.
https://twitter.com/VanChristmas/status/1465421486945026052?s=20
This holiday market is a truly time-honoured German tradition. According to the Vancouver Christmas Market website, a very long time ago, German towns would host Christkindlmarkts where local folks would sell wares, eat food, and be together, all in the name of the winter holiday.
And it seems like the spirit of the Christkindlmarkts has managed to carry itself right to the Jack Poole Plaza downtown. The market opened, officially, on the 13 of November but now that December is peeking its festive head around the corner, it’s really holiday market time.
If I could sum up the Vancouver Christmas Market experience in one photo, it might look something like…
There’s beautiful light displays. There are Transylvanian chimney cakes (okay, full disclosure in the interest of honest journalism: I have never tried a chimney cake but just look how good that looks!).
The Vancouver Christmas Market has all kinds of vendors – from more traditional German vendors of classic beer steins and schweinshaxe, to hot chocolate bombs, to a place you can find the perfect ugly Christmas sweater. Genuinely, they have a little bit of everything.
Beyond the stuff to eat and buy, there are also plenty of activities. There is a ‘Love Lock’ installation, where you and a partner (or anyone else beloved!) can either bring or buy a lock and fasten them together in the installation. There’s a lovers’ lane, which is a beautiful tunnel of Christmas lights that will be – let’s be real – very Instagram worthy.
Last, but not least: up, up, waaaay up, on the second floor of the ‘Christmas Pyramid’, there will be entertainers delighting guests with holiday tunes.
I’d much rather get a little tipsy on some glühwein and intake this whole whimsical experience than be miserable, sweating in my parka, seconds away from physically fighting another shopper in some indoor mall, wouldn’t you?