Zürich Weihnachtsmarkt

Joey brought a little notebook and some
markers on the bus, and he drew this
picture of a soccer player for me on
the way to school.

We started off our Friday as we have so many, walking off to our Blumen Tots play group.  There are several groups that share the little community center basement room that is home to our group, and they take turns cleaning: it's our group's turn, finally.  I've had to do preschool cleaning before, with our cooperative preschools back in Kirkland. There, the schools do a deep cleaning each week, spraying just about everything down with bleach and water and scrubbing each toy individually.

I would have expected Swiss standards to be even higher, but they only require a soap-and-water rinse on their toys, and things are only cleaned like this once a month. Even so, it was clear, as I dumped the bucket of Duplos into the sink for scrubbing, that they hadn't been cleaned for several months at least.  But our moms took their jobs quite seriously: I had to bite my cheek several times too keep from laughing at how strongly opinionated everyone was about the best methods of cleaning this or that.

It was awfully nice to be able to get our chores done while the kids played, though: they're really a well-behaved group of little ones. They helped, too, unzipping the cloth wrappers from their big foam blocks so that we could change them out.  But the kids spent most of their time playing 1-2-3-jump, and rolling around on the floor with each other, just like the little pile of puppies that they are.

On the way home from school, the
inevitable happened

For this evening, Susannah and I made plans to take the kids to the Zürich Hauptbahnhof, the main train station, to see the newly opened Weihnachtsmarkt, the Christmas market. When Dennis traveled to Zürich last winter on his apartment-finding trip, he spent a little time walking around the Christmas market and described it to me, but I didn't quite understand how extensive and elaborate it is.

The Christmas market, with the Swarovski tree in the background

Each year they cover the main atrium of the train station, and several of the corridors, too, with dozen of little wooden huts. These are rented by vendors who sell seasonal foods (both for gifts and for immediate consumption) and handicrafts. And in the center of it all is the Swarovski Christmas tree, an enormous live pine that stretches to the ceiling and is covered entirely with Swarovski crystal ornaments, which, helpfully, they sell at a nearby stand, for about fifty francs a piece.

I got the kids set to go see all these wonders at about 4:00. I'd unceremoniously woken Joey from his nap after preschool when I tried to move him into his bed; he fell asleep, once again, almost as soon as I'd strapped him into his stroller. But Alex was more than happy to slide into the role of mischievous child. While he was throwing nut shells and other little bits of nature into the stream that flows next to our train station, he slipped and fell in.

I dragged my spluttering son home for a quick change of clothes and shoes before dashing back to find Susannah, who had gotten off the train that we'd missed to wait for us.  Luckily, at that hour, the trains come every ten minutes.

Although my soggy-wet Alex had declared that he did not want to see the Weihnachtsmarkt, no way, no how, he quickly got excited once he saw the stalls with all of the pretties.

 But they were a little too tantalizing  The floor of the train station was a maze of buildings, with rivers of people between: a very difficult place to keep track of three kids. Unconscious Joey wasn't such a problem, although negotiating his stroller through the crowds was a little hard. But Ella and Alex kept wandering off to look at this or that, which made me cross with them, which made them cross with each other.  It wasn't the peaceful, magical visit I'd hoped for: really, such a visit probably wasn't possible. I want to go back, though, with one child at a time, to give them the chance to ogle all the toys and trinkets to their heart's content.

We all did a lot better after we left the train station to Bahnhofstrasse, where they'd finally illuminated the strings of lights that have been strung for weeks.  I bought the kids some roasted peanuts from the hot chestnut vendor, to stave off some of the hunger that was probably also adding to their crankiness. We made a stop along the way at a little plaza where, sometimes, groups of kids sing carols.  It was still too early in the season for that, but they did have a little carousel that the kids enjoyed, with a stand selling gluhwein (a hot mulled wine) that helped cheer me up, too.

We thought about looking for street food for dinner–there was certainly plenty–but we had so many leftovers at home, and our gang is leaving town tomorrow for a short vacation. So, instead, Susannah's family joined us at ours for Thanksgiving Dinner, take 2.

The tram ride home was as crowded as I've ever seen it. Friday commuters were joined by tourists and locals, both, who had gone downtown to see all the decorations and shops. But Alex snuggled up next to Caroline and Susannah, while Ella found some of the little first graders from school that follow her around the playground sometimes and kept them and herself amused, feeding them peanuts and chit-chatting.

And so we made our way home, where the kids happily curled up with legos and leftovers.

Dennis' and my night was far from over, though, after our friends left and we'd gotten the kids tucked into bed. Tomorrow, bright and early, we leave for a short vacation to Strasbourg and an amusement park in Germany, which meant a lot of packing and preparation tonight.   We're getting better and better at all of that, though: we managed to stash four days of clothes and toys into a duffel bag and a half.

Plenty of room for souvenirs. Reeling from sticker shock from the Zürich Weihnachtsmarkt, I'm a looking forward to doing a little Ausland Christmas shopping.