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| Christmas Tree and Lights, Kirkby Stephen England |
One of the things we’ve most looked forward to this year was spending some of the holiday season in Europe. Like most Americans who have vacationed to Europe, our previous trips (with the exception of a business trip to the Netherlands one December) have all been during the summer. We’ve been curious how Europeans celebrate and decorate for Christmas. So settling into the English countryside for the month of December, one of the first things we did was Google for nearby Christmas fairs (or “fayres” as they sometimes spell them).
To get us warmed up and in the Christmas spirit, we went to Kirkby Stephen’s (the village where we’re staying) “Christmas Light Switch-on” the first Friday we were here (the same night of the pantomime we attended). Regarding the Christmas tree lights and town decorations, it was pretty much what you’d expect. There was also a musical group performing Christmas carols: they were mostly carols we Americans could recognize, but in a couple of cases they were the lyrics we were familiar with, (peculiarly and rather interestingly) set to a different tune.
Starting the next morning, we began exploring the Cumbrian countryside, and from that weekend to the next, we took in three Christmas fayres.
Penrith Winter Festival – Penrith’s Winter Festival runs over the entire holiday season, with different events day to day. We missed the event we would have most liked to see, the Winter Droving, by a week. Instead we got by Penrith’s Reged Discovery Center to see a couple of Santa’s reindeer, some Christmas caroling, and lots of kids busily working at Christmas crafts, including decorating their own “baubles”, which is what the English call decorations, like tree ornaments. The best part of the Penrith Winter Festival (for us, anyway), was that our friends Brian and Debbie (who we met on our cruise in Turkey back in late September) drove down from their home in Scotland and “gathered near to us once more” for the day.
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| An Elf Tending Reindeer |
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| Singing Christmas Carols |
Carlisle Christmas International Market – We spent one day in Carlisle back in August on our way to Glasgow. It was just a convenient stopover on our way north. We saw the Carlisle Castle and we walked around the market square, but we left with the impression from our Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning that Carlisle was a sleepy little town. It’s not. We returned in December to nearby Carlisle for their International Christmas Market, which filled the square with craft tents selling everything from jewelry, home goods, candy, English cheese, tasty treats, and more. The local Salvation Army band played Christmas carols as “shoppers rushed home with their treasures”.
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| Carlisle’s International Christmas Market |
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| Lori Browsing Scarves |
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| Indian Food Under the Christmas Tree |
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| Hot Mulled Wine and Cider |
Keswick’s Victorian Fayre – Finally, our last weekend in Kirkby Stephen we drove over to the lake-bordering village of Keswick (pronounced “Kezz-ick”) to attend their Victorian Fayre. After all our blogging about the Victorian influence on Christmas, this was right up our alley. Note to self: Keswick–nestled on the lake and surrounded by mountains and filled with pubs, restaurants, hotels, and great craft shops–is a town to return to (as we left Keswick, Lori commented, “I didn’t realize England had snow-capped mountains”). Keswick’s lively fayre encourages their volunteers and shop workers to dress in Victorian style: a nice touch, we think. We saw more of Santa’s reindeer (and jolly old St. Nick himself), lots of craft tents (all representing non-profit organizations, also a nice touch), and some great musical performances where “sang we joyous, all together”.
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| Victorian Christmas Revellers |
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| Santa and his Reindeer |
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| Nope, It’s Not Dasher. It’s Hamish. |
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| The Lively Keswick Victorian Christmas Fayre |
