To think that most christmas markets are having us over

[sunintheeast]

Not bah humbug I love christmas but was at a nice christmas market today.. mostly food.. some makers stalls but my God the price hike.. bought two wraps which were no shred (haha) of a lie like those starters on a chinese resteraunt.. but a single wonton wrap with a teaspoon of meat and a bit of relish.. FOR £24 QUID. I stupidly paid before seeing it and then felt daft and said thankyou.. literally two bites each... the place was heaving.. is it just me??.. £7 hot chocolate anyone ?? looked around..its all gone insane. There were a couple of reindeer looking sad in a pen but it just felt like it's all gone a bit mad. I like supporting local but ,.. anyone else feel the same ??

The problem we have now is that we don't get the traditional stall holders from continental Europe coming over because Brexit has made it such an expensive hassle.

I was at Lilles one last week. Same rubbish overpriced. We were fenced in in crowds that just wasnt safe. Couldn't get out easily. Was dreadful. Bought nothing except a small piece of nougat - 11e. #robbed!

YANBU. I expect the real thing in Germany in freezing temperatures is lovely, but overpriced English markets selling tat from sheds for a fortune? No thanks.

I don't know what they charge for Gluhwein at a proper German market but I bet it's less than 6 quid, which seems to be the going rate for half a paper cup round here! Food is outrageous too, and mostly not worth it.

I'm VERY humbuggy about Christmas Markets in the UK now, mostly because the ones I've been to are a bit shite. Basically what I expect is something along the continental North European model - so I want a few stalls selling German/Swiss wooden ornaments, those incense smokers and candle holders, colourful paper star lights, glass decorations, gingerbread stalls - and some decent crafts that are worthy of the term 'craft'. Proper artisanal stuff that's made by the sellers or at least in the UK, something that takes skill and years of experience - pottery, silversmithing, quilts, wood carving, mosaics, handmade candles, etc. When what you get is rows of stalls selling bought-in dross that was made in China, mass-produced tat, and 'craft' that basically entails someone going to Hobbycraft or Baker Ross and buying tacky supplies and then glueing it onto other stuff.

Yes, I'm a crafts snob! Decoupaged wine bottles, glasses with gems and glitter stuck on, diamonte pictures, plaster cast trinket bowls - they give a really bad name to 'crafts'. I make rather nice things that I sell for probably too little, and people printing AI images onto polyester cushions and tote bags next stall to me are charging mad money for it. I should just stop, really. It's sad.

absolutely - and I suspect this is the case on the continent too. Go for small towns and smaller events, and avoid the mass-produced tat.

Our local village now has a spectacularly good Christmas market/fair with music, mulled wine for £3.50 I think it was, home-baked cake, sausages which are NOT £9 a pop, and loads and loads of lovely stalls, lots are local designer-makers, which actually qualify as 'craft' rather than as 'tat that I have bought in from China to mark up 400% and sell on'.

I went to a Christmas Market this year and got chatting to a stalll holder. She told me how much it was going to cost her to have a stall for 2 weeks at a northern city . It explained the mad expensive costs.

You're not wrong. We walked through a local one, and it was very overpriced. DH wanted to win me a Capybara (you got one if you lost), but it was £7! No thanks. The majority of the stalls were (overpriced) food... pretty and nice to walk around, but no

I used to work at an evening call center in Manchester and got a taxi home on the late shift. Unfortunately the taxi rank was next to the market and there was always a huge queue. I got dirty looks from the folks in the queue because I nabbed a taxi from where they pulled in on the other side. The market itself was heaving, noisy and crowded with just one narrow entrance to get in and out. It was a safety hazard. I have never visited there since.

We were watching YouTube videos of vaeious Xmas markets and have just been to Hamburg, UK markets charge up to £9.50 for a mug of gluhwein, it was £3.93 approx in Hamburg! Again bratwursts are about £10 on UK markets, and about £4.50 in Hamburg and that's a really nice rustic looking big sausage in crispy fresh baked bread.

The ones in Germany sold a lot of tat too, from what I could see.

I quite enjoy the markets in Birmingham. The cathedral one is more focused on local suppliers and has a range of more reasonable offerings and pricier offerings. The German one is pretty much the same year on year, but can get a good atmosphere. They're only 5 minutes from each other so 2 in 1.

Oh that’s a shame, I went to one in France last night that was well priced and full of happy families. Going back again this weekend for more yummy foods and the champagne bar!

I went to the market in Birmingham about 10yrs ago and walked past a stall selling chocolate items including chocolate santas for £3.95 each.
About half an hour later, I was in Poundland. When I arrived at the checkout, the guy from the chocolate stall was there buying 150 chocolate santas, exactly the same as he was selling, but he was buying them for £1 each or 3 for £2, so he paid about 67p each for them and had the nerve to walk up the street and sell them with an extortionate markup!
That was the final straw after seeing all the ridiculous prices throughout the market.
I've not been to one of these xmas markets since.

I do think this is a result of stall prices. If you need to pay £500 plus per day then you need a big turnover to justify and chunky margins. Can you imagine being a crafter selling your lovely home made stuff and the first £1k a day is just going on costs and materials

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)

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

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.

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!

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.

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!

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 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.

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 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.

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!