h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I returned home on Friday after a few days away to find that they have assembled the little houses for the Christmas market in the town centre.

The Market is not opening until the end of the month (24th maybe?), but there they are.

There will be gingerbread and sweets and waffles and mulled wine and doughnuts and champagne and oysters and chestnuts.

There will be the lady who sells little figurines for the Nativity scenes, and the guy who makes cute wooden boxes with a secret lock, and the people who sell fancy towels and the people who make foie gras and those who make sausages, and the cheese makers and the scarves and the bags and the balloons...

At the weekends, there will be music, brass bands or choirs or folk groups from somewhere or other.


And a donkey and sheep and ponies for children to look at and fondle.

And Santa.
(No fondling Santa, though!)


And, maybe, snow.

They do something like that in Birmingham city centre, a German market. My mum & I took my brother's kids a few times on a weekday afternoon but now they're all at school we can't do that, which is a shame. It's far too busy at the weekends and mid-week there just isn't enough time on a school night to get there and back.

Deb

[Amy P]

Sounds wonderful!

There are various holiday bazaars and fairs in my area, usually sponsored by local churches.

The magazine section for today's Boston Globe listed four towns in new England with major Christmas festivals. In Newport, Rhode Island, the big mansions will be decorated to the nines for the whole month of December.

It seems you can't escape Christmas themes wherever you go now.

Ah SF! It makes me want to be in France this very minute. How evocatively you write.

Thank you!

I can pick you up at the station, what time are you arriving?