We had a lovely time and a delicious meal this evening with our dear friends, Dinis and Silvia and their son, David. Their home is warm and inviting, filled with the spirit of Christmas.
Wow, the pork roast and potatoes were fabulous. Here’s a link that shows how to make these Hasselback potatoes:
We love the Adrianos and our work associates and we loved a quiet evening with friends in a real home at Christmas time. It’s so good to be here. Tomorrow we leave for Vienna and Salzburg for the rest of the holidays.
This evening we were up for another Christmas Market, this time in our own town, Bad Homburg. We decided to take the bus (free to the Christmas Market) and spend the evening exploring there.
We got off the bus at Luisenstrasse, the walking promenade that leads to the castle and the Christmas Market area. The whole distance was festive with a few market stalls along the way. At Christmas time in Germany, the shop windows are decorated and beautiful. There are stars and lights in windows. Everything feels festive.
At one of the plazas, we found the life-sized Nativity. My favorite part was the ox looking through the window in the manger.
We circled back to see the 2 big churches lit up at night at the end of our evening.
A pharmacy dating back to 1684.
To me, every single light at Christmas time represents the Light of Christ. I love them all so much.
Much of the Christmas Market was set up outside the castle, in different plaza areas. Now we are entering the castle complex.
Other missionaries told us about some beautiful wood Nativities made by a wood cutter, right here in the market. We were able to find his shop and the little telephone booth where he worked. We enjoyed looking at his work.
We bought a few small pine trees to add to our Nativity collections.
A fun wandering musician:
This was a fun little train for the kiddies.
I was surprised to see these African snail shells all the way here in Bad Homburg! These were a delicacy in Abidjan!
Cheese Spaetzle (glorified mac & cheese)!
These little ladies made me smile. They were made in Paris. There’s one missing. It came home with me.
Running into friends –the Wolfert family–and enjoying some Christmas street music!
Gloves, caps and scarves are very popular in the shops here. It’s cold!!
Beautiful pottery:
After seeing all we could in the Christmas Market, we walked back to the bus stop another way so we could see the beautiful churches.
This is one of my favorite streets in Seligenstadt because there are some very old homes here being restored. Each time we’ve been here, I’ve checked the progress. I think it’s fascinating to see what’s behind the plaster.
These old homes were built of mud brick, mud made with straw. After 200 or 300 years, some of these bricks are as hard as cement.
Some of the old bricks have been removed.
In the areas below, just mud was used.
Look how thick the walls are:
The tower is to give you some bearings about where this street is. There’s a good parking area behind the tower.
Seligenstadt is less than an hour from Frankfurt and it’s one of our favorite little towns. This was our 3rd visit there, this time for the Christmas Market. We really had a fun time, spending about 4 hours wandering through the streets and market areas.
Seligenstadt (blessed city) is a friendly community, with cute local shops and vendors and ladies who baked their own cookies to sell. It was delightful. We enjoyed looking at each shop, watching people making special foods, and seeing lots of people from the town out enjoying the festivities. In addition to the market stalls, the local stores were also festive and open for business. I purchased a Spaetzle maker and some star cookie cutters at a wonderful kitchen store.
The market here runs from the 28th of November until the 15th of December (tomorrow), so we were glad to fit this into our schedule.
We enjoyed hot cups of orange/lemon punch that warmed our innerds.
Look who we bumped into!! The Walls and the Dixons were also here enjoying the market!
Oh my, look what we found–Polish Pottery! Jacque found another piece she had to have!
Fun Christmas stars:
Here is a local glass blower. It was so fun to watch him making ornaments.
Hot homemade potato chips:
As always, my eyes are looking for Stolpersteine wherever we go.
And John is looking for bakeries wherever we go!
An old bakery:
Along this street there are some very very old houses that have been or are being restored. I think it’s fascinating to see the old-time construction and how these buildings were made. More about that in the next post.
For lunch we had crepes, ham, cheese and pineapple.
We found a really fun bookstore. We were looking for some Christmas gifts for friends and found just the right books here.
The ladies at the register taught us a fun way to wrap these gifts:
More Stolpersteine:
After visiting the market, we went to see the Kloster and the beautiful church over by the river.
“Every heart can be a manger where in the Dear One is born.”
Today we got to watch a father and his son and some other church members setting up the Christmas trees here.
What a beautiful Advent Wreath! Each Sunday a new candle is lit during the 4 weeks of Advent leading up to Christmas.
Beautiful!
Setting up the trees:
This depiction of Jesus on the cross always stops me.
After visiting the church and the river behind it, we wandered back through town to our parking place.
We’re taking a loaf of Stollen home with us–my favorite!
As we passed by this shop, these beautiful candle-lit copper scenes caught our eye. We found some with beautiful Nativity scenes on them and purchased some for gifts for dear friends and for ourselves.
These luminaria are all made by the family selling them. As we talked, the gentleman was punching sheets of copper fed through a roller. A candle-lit Nativity seems just right.
This Nativity will be a nice memory of our visit to the market here in Köln.
Our Frankfurt Germany Mission 