A Canadian Moose Singing Spanish Christmas Songs in German?

Now that I have been to about 4 different Christmas Markets - Koln, Bonn, Siegburg and Bad Honnef, I feel that they are all pretty similar with regard to what they offer. Typically one can find Christmas ornaments, carved wooden handicrafts, felt hats and bags, pottery and blown glass, your typical craft fair items with a little Christmas flair. All of the markets also have dozens of stands which sell gingerbread cookies with messages written on them. I’ve seen people wearing these big cookies around their necks. I’m not sure why they wear them. Maybe they are trying to make sure everyone knows that there is someone who loves them enough to buy them a stale cookie for 5 Euro.

I think the Christmas market is mostly about the food and the drinking though, much like your typical State Fair which has rides for the kids and beer and lots of fried food for the adults. At the Christmas Market, the food generally includes your brotwurst of course but also reibekucken (fried potato pancakes), flammkuchen (flatbread pizza with ham and onions), waffles, and some strange sweet dumpling with hot berries which I haven’t been brave enough to try yet. I have tried to like the Gluhwein, but I haven’t yet warmed up to the idea of steaming hot slightly sweet red wine.

My favorite part of the Bonn Christmas Market is a big fake moose on one of the Gluhwein stands. He talks and sings Christmas songs. I love how he tells you he’s from Canada and then proceeds to sing Feliz Navidad in Deutsch.