Christmas markets offer antidote to online shopping - Houston Chronicle

The smell of bratwurst wafted over the church hall in Bellaire on Saturday morning. The German Christmas market was in full swing and shoppers were out in force to look over the handmade ornaments, hand carved wooden bowls and homemade soap for sale while they sipped mulled wine and ate sausages.

The market, which helps to support the German Saturday School in Houston that provides German language classes for children and adults, is one of the Christmas bazaars that pop up around Houston as shoppers look for one-of-a-kind gifts and try to re-capture some of the old holiday traditions. It’s a throwback to the time when people didn’t do most of their shopping online or venture out to crowded shopping malls.

Christmas markets are popular in Europe, where vendors set up small wooden chalets each year to sell an assortment of trinkets, hand-crafted items and regional food and drink specialties. The markets transform some towns into winter wonderlands and have become a Christmas tradition for families. The Christmas markets are so popular that cruise ships hop from market to market.

The German Christmas market in Bellaire didn’t have the advantage of snow and the church hall at Bellaire United Methodist Church wasn’t the same as shopping in a centuries old European village but it more than made up for that with children singing Christmas songs in German, a combo playing Christmas favorites and lights decorating the tables. For shoppers who were hungry, cooks made crepes, the Swiss delicacy of melted Raclette cheese over boiled potatoes and a variety of sausages.

“We had a feast,” said Elvira Schafer, listing off all the things she and her daughter, Katarina, sampled: brats, potato pancakes, raclette.

There were also plenty of sweets, including cakes and cookies.

Alexis Andres bought a ginger almond cinnamon mini cake for $1 at a bakery stand. Andres, the counsel general of France in Houston, said the German Christmas market reminds him of the four years he spent in Berlin as a diplomat.

One of the most popular gifts Linda Gabrielson was selling at the market was a red hand painted wooden sign that said “Frohe Weihnachten, Y’all” which, in English, means Merry Christmas Y’all.

Rosamond Rohde of Sugar Land had to have it. It would compliment a similar sign she bought from Gabrielson last year at the market, said Rohde, whose 6-year-old daughter Emma attends the German Saturday school.

A couple of miles away the Russian Cultural Center was also selling homemade Christmas decorations, including a hand painted nutcracker, statues of “Father Frost” and year-around gifts such as tea pots and nesting dolls. One of the dolls was painted to resemble the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and another was basketball star Michael Jordan.

“You’re not going to find this anywhere else,” said Russian Cultural Center volunteer Eugene Grinblat.

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2019-12-22 00:56:50Z
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