There's a Christkindlmarkt in Downtown Chicago!

We were doing some reminiscing of Holidays Past and were wishing we could go to a German/Austrian Christmas Market. 

Guess what?

There's one in Downtown Chicago (at the Daley Plaza)!

Considering that we didn't have to pay a couple of thousand dollars for airplane tickets and spend hours at various airports (not to mention the whole TSA screening issue) I'd say this was a bargain-and-a-half!  We only paid $32 to park in a parking garage.  Ouch!  And that's not including all the goodies we purchased at the market. 

So on one fine Sunday morning we went -->

In front of the giant Christmas Tree

 In front of one of the booths....selling Lebkuchen and other goodies.  Most of the booths were run by Germans selling their wares (they're here for this market and then they go home).

 Hey!  You can't forget the pigeons....they deserve a fire to warm up, right?

 A lovely nativity set.

 The candy shop we waited in a long line to get in...oh the goodies!!!!Many were a blast from my distant past.  Now I know why it's called the Windy City.  Brrrrrr!!!!!!  The cold wind made this outing just a tad bit on the uncomfortable side.  Thank goodness for gluehwein and hot apple cider!

 Another view of the market

 See all those candies/goodies in the Sweet Shop?  Many of them came home with us.  :)

 No...these aren't the roasted chestnuts we're accustomed to getting at Christmas markets in Austria (heisse Maroni).  These are candied pecans.  They were good but no substitute for those roasted chestnuts (that were sadly missing from this market!).  Notice the missing tooth?  It came out when Annika was at school.  I had no idea it was that loose!

 I think Ava is grumpy because I didn't let her hold my bag of candied pecans.  Poor thing.  I'm sure she'll get over it soon!

 Beautiful and very expensive nutcrackers from Germany.

 A wall of Cuckoo Clocks!  Couldn't resist taking a photo of all these lovelies.  They had some gorgeous ones that only cost a few arms and legs.

 I'm not familiar with German Potato Pancakes.  We tried the Crepes- they were more like Palatschinken.  Yum!  By the time we finished these lovely "crepes" we were ready to high tail it out of the market.  My legs and feet were frozen!

So...considering the 7 hour round-trip drive and the out-of-this-world expensive parking I'd say this market was a smash hit!

We meant come on Saturday but a very courteous snow storm came and dumped 8" of snow on us on Friday night/all day Saturday so that plan went down the toilet!  We didn't give up hope though!