Last night, I had the wonderful opportunity to share a little bit of my mission with my kids and wife. Unfortunately, I have never been able to make it back to Germany with my family yet, but maybe someday we will make it. Until then, I love to look for opportunities to share some of the German culture with my family. I found out this week that This is the Place Heritage Park has a Christkindlmarkt every year. I had no idea, but once I found out about it, I was determined that we were going. Last night was our chance.
If you are unfamiliar with the Christkindlmarkt concept, let me explain. Each little town in Germany has their own Christkindlmarkt, or Weihnachtsmarkt, in the middle of the town in the pedestrian zone. The zone is lined with little wooden booths where people are selling great little Christmas gifts and foods and drinks and what not. It is awesome. It seems like they run the whole month of December, and it makes for a magical atmosphere at Christmas time. There are many of these markets throughout the United States, some larger than others. This is Salt Lake's little version, and I loved it.
It was very small, and I really wasn't interested in most of the shops, because I just wanted to be there because it reminded me of Germany. My kids thought it was really cool, though. They liked the lights and the smells and just everything there was to see. We of course bought some Lebkuechen, because that is a German Christmas must. Siegfried's was there, and their little food wagon smelled amazing, but they were also the most popular stop there, so the line was long, so we skipped it.
The kids thought it was cool because it was like dad's mission. They were also all excited to see St. Nicklaus while we there. At least they all said they were excited. That changed when we got up to St. Nicklaus, and they all chickened out, except for Lucy, who we had to hold back so she wouldn't run in front of the other people waiting ahead of us, and Johnny, who all of a sudden had no idea what he wanted. St. Nicklaus promised that Johnny would get a big empty box that just said "I don't know" on it.
On the way out, I decided to go back to one of the little booths to get one item. When I was on my mission, I really started to appreciate a particular thing they had there at Christmas time. I knew about the nutcrackers before my mission, and I had seen the spinning pyramids, but I had never seen the little smoker men. I thought they were zoo cool on my mission, and I always wanted to buy one, but I never did. They had some at the Christkindlmarkt last night, so I looked to see if they had any in my price range, which was between a little and not a lot. I was in luck. They had a couple to choose from, so I picked one, and was so excited to bring it home. I call him Fredrick.
One of my favorite things about Christmas time is all the traditions. Things you do each year that remind you and tell you that it is really Christmas time. Things that remind you maybe of when you were a kid, or things you hope your kids will look back on and remember fondly. It is always exciting to try something new and discover a new activity that could become a tradition. I feel like this adventure last night will be a new tradition for us. I plan on going back next year, seeing all the same things, and possibly adding to our smoker man collection (my wife says it isn't a collection since we only have one. I just remind her that's how collections start).
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