As the Christmas season begins, Ata Bos goes to a Finnish “Joulu” market to find out if it brings her in a lyrical, Christmas mood.
The sky is grey, it rains, and it´s dull outside when my husband and I leave the house on an early Saturday morning. “Let´s take an umbrella,” I say before turning the key in the lock of the back door. Husband returns to the house and comes out with an umbrella in his left hand and wellies in his right. “Why go to a Christmas market on a day like this?” he mutters reproachfully. Raindrops splash on his sleepy features. “Think I’ll need these?” he adds sarcastically, holding the dirty boots up.
In the cosiness of our car, I think over the first question. Why do we need to drive 30 km to visit a Christmas market in a small village, I wonder. “Is it weird to spend a free Saturday in an outdoor market and weather that’ll make us look like drowned poodles?” I almost say out loud.
“I like fresh air” is what I do say, trying to give the conversation a positive swing.. We zoom down the highway to the south. “And I’ve never been to a Christmas market in Finland. It’s something new. I’m curious to see how Finns set up their Christmas markets.” I make it sound like an intellectual expedition for a group of student geographers.
A week earlier I´d received a news release from Satu Sarin in my mailbox. Satu is development manager for the municipality of Liminka, and knows how to spin a sales pitch. “One hundred booths are reserved and there will be lots of different and interesting items on sale,” she writes in the release. “The market takes place in the “Vanha Liminka” area with traditional rice porridge. New parking arrangements will help visitors to attend this year’s olde Christmas event.”
This arouses curious and nostalgic feelings. Reading her epistle, I decide to inform my colleague editors via email that I am the one to write a review on the Christmas market in Liminka.
I have experience, after all. For more than 15 years I was a regular visitor to the traditional “Weinachtsmarkt” (meaning the same thing) in Germany, in cities like Hamburg, Bremen, Heidelberg, Mannheim, and Rothenburg where since the middle ages, the square and surrounding straße have lit up Disney style during Christmas, and people have sold roasted apples, seasonal items, lebkuchen and drinks such as Glühwein, the German mulled wine extravaganza with brandy, cloves, allspice and probably a barrelful of zinfandel. Choirs perform traditional Christmas jingles on stages, and the sounds of Bach’s Oratorio float through open church doors, mixing with the smell of cinnamon and nutmeg.
Something special in the visits to the Christmas markets made me return every year. It wasn’t the commerce: I never spent much on decorations or kitsch, but the glûhweinand the atmosphere, aaaaah. Also, the salespeople at Christmas markets are kind and much nicer than those in normal stores. They’re helpful and smile even if you don’t buy. The carols make me happy and sentimental, and the whole world seems transformed into a friendlier place.
I know I´m a bit spoiled, but I’m not a snob. Looking out at the fields and the rain from the car window, I try to temper my expectations. Even the fact of a Christmas market organized by a village of 9000 inhabitants is exciting. “I’ll go with an open mind and try to observe the Finnish Christmas market from a Finnish perspective,” I decide. “Let’s see if the market gets us in a decent Christmas mood!” I say to husband, as we take the turn off to the left.
Around 11.00 we reach the old Liminka area. Traffic guards in yellow safety vests point us to the well-arranged, but full parking lot. From the lot, we can see an array of colourful lanterns at both sides of the cycling path, marking the way up to the market. It’s surprisingly busy. Mothers and fathers with children, people in wheelchairs, the elderly, and particularly large numbers of young children walk the muddy paths between stalls, with handicraft items, homemade cakes, and other tantalizing goodies.
A blacksmith displays his skills to an audience. Children line up in the rain for the nativity scene at the end of of a tähtipolku (star trail) or for pony rides. Cold, hungry visitors line up in the kitchen of the old parish for rice porridge, and a man announces something we can’t hear in monotone through a megaphone.
We walk up to an open fire and are pleasantly surprised by the neat little booths. These are decorated with spruce branches, colourful tablecloths, stars made from straw, wooden Santas, and felt angels. We go for a ring cake decorated with chocolate from three young men obviously selling for a club of some sort. From their pouty glances, it’s not the local baking club, but their mums certainly did a good job.
Marika, an inhabitant of nearby Tupas, is walking through the market with her two children when I stop to grill her with questions. “It’s my first time here,” she says. “It’s nice, but the weather is bad. I’d like to go home. The little one is cold!”
So far so blue. Petri, at teacher from Oulu, agrees. “It’s a pity there’s no snow,” he says. Not the first time I’ve heard that complaint in the past few weeks, I think. “The whole market against the background of the old papal house would have looked so much better in the snow,” enunciates the party-pooper, then follows his children into the dark heart of the afternoon.
A few days later, a text message arrives from Satu Sarin. “The old Christmas market in Liminka took place for the fifth time,” she writes. “It was organised by the municipality, the local parish, and some cooperators. Despite the weather, it attracted 2200 visitors.”
Personally – and it is my review – I think the wanhan ajan joulu in Liminka has potential. Perhaps not the kind of grandeur you see in Germany, but they definitely go for a modest approach. The location in front of the old parish house is lovely, whatever Petri says, though some snow would have wollied it up a bit. The place was easy to find. The parking places were well set up. The community put their buns together to create a sweet Scandinavian atmosphere and did exactly that. There were enough activities for children and a selection of handicraft for reasonable euro sums made it good for shoppers.
I leave my review for a day, then add extra paragraphs.
There was no hot chocolate, punch or glögi, I start to write. Makkara is not a Christmas delicacy. There were no Christmas lights, no outdoors prepared food smell; there was no music, no children’s choir, no tenor with an amazing voice or even a young musician playing ubiquitous Christmas songs on the violin.
Then I decide not to. Those things would have made a difference, I think, but I’m no snub.I’m no Christmas curmudgeon. If anyone from Liminka council–Satu Sarin, say–is reading this article, I’ve nothing against there being music and fairy lights next year. But generally speaking, two cold and wet thumbs up.
Please keep the topic of messages relevant to the subject of the article.
