Mannheim Christmas Market

On Tuesday, we loaded up the kids and drove in the rain to a town about 45 minutes away, Mannheim. Many of the villages and cities here have had wonderful Christmas markets throughout the month of December which have booths displaying and selling traditional German food, goodies, clothing, decorations, and gifts. Mannheim's Christmas market was really great because it had a lot of fun rides for the kids. Even though it was raining, we arrived in high spirits and started off with a ride for the kids. Mason, Ella and Colton rode around a track in different vehicles while listening to Christmas music.








We went on a ferris wheel next. At first, Mason wanted nothing to do with the ferris wheel, he just wanted to be an observer. But as he watched his siblings going around and around, he decided it looked pretty fun so I went with him on the ride the next time and we got to see the whole Christmas market from up above.


Next we went on the German's version of the Polar Express, a little train that took us around in circles and instead of showing scenes of winter wonderlands, we saw big beer barrels and unidentifiable sausage products: Christmas German Style.




By now the boys were getting hungry, so we sought out a bratwurst stand and Jaxon and Sean found some good 'brats'.


We tried to pose for a family picture in front of the water tower, and almost everyone was looking happy:

We bought crepes: (zucker and zift: sugar and cinnamon ones)

The kids rode ponies:



I gotta tell you what happened when the kids were getting ready to ride the ponies. A German lady approached me and started talking to me in German. I had no clue what she was saying, but I could tell she was upset. Her tone of voice let me know that if I could understand her, I probably would be getting in a fighting stance and putting up my dukes for her to meet "thunder" and "lightning". But, since I had no idea what she was saying, I just smiled and kept saying, No Clue. I was worried at first that she was Anti-American and was criticizing us for something. When we lived here before, every once in a blue moon we would run into someone who didn't like Americans. I know, crazy, but true. So, I feared this lady could just sense my red, white, and blue blood and was giving me an earful. But no, I finally figured out what the deal was: she was ticked off that the animals were being used as a ride. She thought it was cruel to let the kids ride on ponies. She started yelling at the people who worked at the ride, and I just stepped back and thought that a German Jerry Springer would probably pay big bucks if I was recording this on my I phone. Oh well. The kids didn't notice and had fun. We went on a merry go round to end our Christmas market experience:


By then, Mason was cold and couldn't feel his toes very well, so we figured we would call it a day and go back home. We had our first 'schneeballs': a German pastry consisting of pie crust rolled in a ball and dipped in sugar or chocolate. Yum. Double yum. We ate them on the way home, making a huge mess but enjoying every minute.