Winter wonders 2017: Impressions & favorite stands

If you go every year, odds are you’ll recognize all the usual chalets and sigh that it’s “always the same” but on the other hand you create your habits. You know you’ll go here for this or there for that. There’s a little chalet I like that sells little statues of cats, elephants, hippos… As I walked past it the other night, my friend asked me if I really needed one of these. “Of course, I don’t need one, but I want one.” And so this year I bought myself a little hippo. I guess that’s the charm of Christmas markets. Many things you don’t really need, but just as many you want. And then you start thinking to yourself “Now where can I put this in my house?” or “Who should I buy this for, because it’s really cool!”. You get tempted by little statues (oops), soap carvings (so cool!), wooden decorations (wow, the talent!), etc… Yet this only sums up the arts & crafts part of the Christmas market. There’s food too. You go from Tunisian sweets to Brazilian croquettes, to a traditional ‘tartiflette’, then past the crêpe stand (who can resist those?)… and think you can eat no more. Until you see the waffle stand, the chalet with the Portuguese egg tarts (I’m secretly eating one of those as I’m typing this) and the Argentinian empenadas. Basically, you eat and you shop and think to yourself “this is too much for one day, we’ll come back tomorrow”.