To think that most christmas markets are having us over

Agree, the big ones are usually overpriced rubbish. However, I've been to Chester a few times and found some lovely handmade bits; Shrewsbury too.

Find a nearby pub and sit in it.

YANBU. What’s even worse is when you go to Christmas markets in Europe they’re so cheap! Where my DP comes from in France, mulled wine is about £1.50 - and that’s using a really high quality wine!

It does seem odd they are called "markets" when they sound more like a "fair" - going by the ones people are describing.
Funfair rides, food stands, fake ice rinks... that's not a market 🤔

Good idea!

Yes. I think the cash strapped councils have become too greedy. They have shot themselves in the foot because if the stallholders don't make enough they won't come back.

Take the piss.

eg. engage in a "who can find the most appalling piece of tat" competition.

The opportunities for entertainment are limited only by your own cynicism.

I was chatting to a stall holder in Manchester. He told me they were charged 22k for 8 weeks. It’s the councils that are having us over not the stall holders.

I used to live in Germany and the Christmas Market was right across the road from our flat. I would literally walk past it every day on my way to the shops. I never looked at the stalls. I think it was in my head that it was for the Germans, not for the likes of me! This is before the markets became a thing.

But doing what? Give me a few bullet points of what I should actually do after I arrive at the place......

Enjoy yourself.

I think the foreign christmas market is the new middle class stealth boast.

Oh aren't UK markets awful and filled with tat, but we were pulled to one on a sledge by huskies in the Tyrolean Alps while drinking mulled wine and it was soooooo much better.

From my experience the foreign ones are just as filled up with tat as the UK ones. Mainly bits of wood tat rather than plastic though.

They are bullshit. Over-priced food, drink, crappy rides for the kids, soap stalls and Xmas decorations at 10 times the usual price. I don't understand what I'm supposed to actually do there 🤷🏻‍♂️

Yes! I recommend walking, running and swimming (although latter two not everyone’s cup of tea). Exercise is great for getting you in a festive mood I find!

Christmas markets in the UK (haven't been to any in Europe so can't comment on them) are sh*te.
Crap products for sale, crappy, overpriced food and drink, and crowds of gormless people wandering aimlessly about passing the flu bug amongst each other. Wild horses wouldn't drag me to one ever again tbh.
And no, I am not Mrs Grinch. I just find them revoltingly soulless, over commercialised and grim. The Christmas spirit is not to be found there!

I was in Cardiff last week and there were several local craft stalls and the ubuquitous "Alpine lodge". It was worth a visit, and definitely much better than the markets near me.

I love Christmas markets so YABU.
Yes, they're expensive but I think of it more as paying for the experience.
I love a mulled wine and maybe a big German bratwurst, and a wander round.

I agree with you the prices are unreasonable fair rides for the kids through the roof .
We visited ours last week you do feel festive I guess but how many families can afford this now.
For next year I'm going to put money away just for the Christmas markets I'd have drinks there but not food .. go and eat somewhere else or before we go out.

Oxford used to have a fairly decent 'German' style Christmas market with several stalls that came over from continental Europe every year - we had a few different German Christmas decoration stalls, including those paper star lanterns, a brilliant Swiss decorations stall that was £££s but eye candy (I have a tiny brass cow bell on a strip of cow hide on the tree from them), a stall run by Russian nuns (!!) with extremely bargainous hand-painted wooden decorations (they started at £2! I have a whole lot from them, but naturally they're not being invited anywhere right now), a Polish pottery stall, and lots of UK crafters too. It was the same stalls every year and I almost felt that was a shame - but in recent years a disagreement between the market runner and the town council (who were being utterly pig-headed about suddenly wanting to open a cycle lane that went through the centre of where the market was) caused the market runner to retire and other companies have come in. For a couple of years it was really depressing - plastic gazebos flapping in the wind and unremarkable, unChristmassy things like olives and plastic tat, and now we have wood cabins back, but the fare is really mundane for the most part. Alongside the £6 gluhwein and £10 sausages, and they also erected a crazy 'Alpine' lodge on two floors that looks really dodgy and like a ghost house from a funfair. I just feel the fun and charm has been completely sucked out.

One I used to enjoy was the Cardiff Christmas market, about 20 years ago. It had some German stalls and you could buy (at a price) those incense smokers, candle arches and candelabras, blown glass baubles, etc. Apparently it's not like that any more.

I’ve just come back from one in Valkenburg. No word of a lie it was amazing, nothing overpriced and the food was decent and not expensive! Britain is a total rip off now and people are stupid enough to pay these prices!

A lot of the Christmas "markets" in towns and city centres seem to be mainly street food, bars and fairgrounds. It is certainly the case in Barnsley, Liverpool and Sheffield. I have heard that York is the same. The comments on the local Facebook page about Barnsley are so uncomplimentary. It's a shame because years ago they used to do a really good German Christmas market with vendors coming over from Germany (Barnsley is twinned with Schwäbisch Gmünd), but this stopped years ago.

It was also the case when I did Birmingham Christmas "market" a few years ago and in Newcastle.

However there are some that are proper Christmas markets. I can highly recommend Chatsworth, Bath and Ludlow. Cardiff also has a decent Christmas market.

Round here one of the farms and the local stately home also do a smaller scale but proper Christmas market.

We went to the York Christmas markets this weekend. The stalls apparently cost £160 - £385 per day! We ate there one of the days (bratwurst loaded chips at £20 for 2 big portions) but got our drinks from small independent cafes. The hot chocolate and mulled wine in paper cups they were selling at the market were tiny, and at £6+ we decided not to bother!

Yes! Whenever there is an 'artisan market' where I live that's all it ever is - crappy Hobbycraft stuff, cushions with dogs on, wooden signs for your shed or loo, a couple of stalls with fudge or cookies. Load of rubbish that no-one wants or needs.

I've seen decent stuff at precisely two Christmas markets in the past - one at a stately home and one at a cathedral. The outdoor ones are always terrible and spending a load of money to walk round with crowd eating something from a food stall isn't my idea of fun.

I was just thinking about this thread! Thank you for finding it, I’m going to enjoy reading it again 🤣

I don't actually find the prices people are charging for crafts, bought-in 'pashminas', woolly socks etc are that extortionate - it's the food and drink and edible gifts that really fleece you, and the fact that the stalls seem mostly tat these days.

As someone who's said 'One day I'll get to Germany and do some markets' (tricky with a very autistic son who absolutely won't want to!) I'm extremely disappointed to hear that some of the German ones are getting tat-filled! I would have thought that they were culturally important enough to have stalls that pass through a panel, or something, like really posh craft fairs in the UK do. (or used to)