This morning the parents of our hosts arrived as they plan
to stay with the children today while their daughter and we go into downtown
Munster. They live in Northern Germany
and had invited us to visit them in their hometown, but that will be for
another time.
It was around noon when we left for Munster, Germany. Munster had the best Christmas Markets yet! Actually,
what was so nice is that Munster was not as commercialized as some of the other
towns we have already visited? There were plenty of traditional foods, sweets
and drinks – we are still sampling and searching for the best gluhwein! They were selling lots of other very nice items
which we had not seen before – some very traditional German. Each of the 4 markets is nicely decorated. We found several items which need to go the
US with us!!
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| Munster Christmas Market |
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| Munster Christmas Market |
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| Munster Christmas Market |
The downtown section of Munster was decorated
beautifully. The buildings were lit and under
each arcade were hanging lit advent wreaths.
After dark (it is dusk by 4:00 and dark by 4:45) the whole downtown
looked so festive. The high-end shops located downtown also have beautifully
decorated windows.
Christmas traditions in Germany are very strong. The 4 weeks of Advent are evident in advent
wreaths everywhere, advent calendars, opening of a small gift each day of
advent, etc. This past Sunday was the
first Sunday of Advent, so the first Advent candle was burning all day. Everywhere Advent wreaths are for sale. We have visited several Dom’s (cathedrals)
and the steady flow of people is amazing.
Every Christmas market has at least one scene of the creche’, and some
have more. Some of the Dom’s have
creche’ displays from around the world - you can walk by to look at them.
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| Downtown Munster Decorated for Christmas |
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| More Gluhwein |
Germany is keeping its traditional ways of shopping. They do not have large chain super stores –
Wal-Mart has left Germany – they tried, but did not succeed. The laws are very strong concerning the hours
a shop can be open – no 24 hr shops.
They must close by 9:00 pm. The
Germans want to keep their traditional bakery shop, meat shop, green grocery
shop, etc. so by their shopping patterns they are speaking their wishes.
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| Chocolate Tools - Good to Eat!! |
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| Market Store |
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| Mini Brats!! and?? |
Tomorrow we say goodbye to these German friends and drive for
an hour and a half drive to the home of the exchange student who lived with us
during the 93/94 school year. It has
been great to reconnect again. They hope
to come to the US again before their son begins 1st grade.
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