The Hans Christian Andersen Christmas market
One of the advantages of living in Odense is, that we have the yearly Hans Christian Andersen Christmas market. The world famous fairytale writer Hans Christian Andersen was born here in Odense and usually it gets a little annoying with all the tourists all over the place, but during Christmas it’s quite nice because of the market.
The market takes place in the old part of town where Andersen was born. The houses and the streets look exactly like they did when he was alive (1805-1875) and during Christmas the area is illuminated with torches and decorated with fir. It looks absolutely lovely. At the market people working in the stalls are all dressed like in the 19. Century and you can buy anything from candied apples and roasted almonds to jewellery and hand-painted porcelain.
Saturday I went to the market with a few friends (and kids) and we had a great time. First we went to the “living museum” where elderly ladies dressed in 1840 costumes showed us how to make lace and Christmas decorations the way it was done 170 years ago. Then we saw a troupe of buskers, all kids who performed with juggling, magic tricks and tightrope walking. They were really great. Later we ran into a group of adult buskers and that was pretty neat as well. At least I was highly impressed by the contortionists and fire eaters.
Outside the big Belgian mirror-tent we were roped in by a mime, who performed there. As the tent was also a café we went inside and while watching the mime show we enjoyed hot chocolate and mulled wine as well as the Danish Christmas-speciality ”apple slices”. Actually it has nothing to do with apples anymore, it’s more like small cakes of batter cooked over the fire in a special kind of pan so that they are totally round. You eat them with sugar and strawberry jam and they taste divine.
When the show was over we went on a ride in a horse-drawn carriage after which we watched the Hans Christian Andersen Parade. This parade consists of children aged 8-18 all dressed like characters from Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale. In a 30 minutes musical they perform highlights from Andersen’s famous stories with Andersen ”himself” as the narrator.
The market also had a range of traditional funfair rides, all antique. The kids loved them, especially the Roundabout and the Chair-O-Planes.
After spending the entire afternoon and some of the evening at the Christmas market we were both cold and tired, but also very happy. No doubt, we’ll be back next year!
@ Lise Lyng Falkenberg, 2009