Mulled Honey - spirit of fairs past

I love winter. I'd probably love it even more if it were warm and sunny, but it works better with my lifestyle, if I'm being honest. It lets me stay in and work. One winter tradition that I won't miss, however, no matter how hectic my sleep or life, is the winter Christmas market here in Bucharest. Maybe because I remember years when there were no funds for them. Or years when only certain people were allowed inside.

Actually, one of my favorite, most bizarre winter memories was from a Christmas fair. When I was about 15 or 16, I went with my family one night, not to this fair, a different one, in a square where a lot of people died during the Revolution. And it was a small, crowded fair, and I was halfway in my own world, in love with Dylan, and I was standing listening to some Christmas music or something, and two men came up and sat beside us, and one of them, he was very handsome, very elegant, leaned over and took my hand. And looked at me, and I didn't know what it meant, him looking at me. And I felt scared and like he was asking for something I didn't know to give, and it was wonderful and strange, and come winter, I always remember it. Simpler times.

Anyway. Shift forward some 9 or 10 years and a mile or so to this year's Christmas Market, right in front of the Parliament building, the biggest governmental building in Europe (I think). It's fascinating to me how much we pride ourselves with this stupid, massive building that that lowly little dictator left us.

The older I get, the less I actually enjoy the Christmas fair. It used to seem like something once, but the more time passes, the more it changes. There's little houses as you can see, and it used to be they sold traditional treats like sausages and kurtos and sarmale and cozonaci, and other such traditional delicacies, but the last couple years, you've got a little house that sells burgers and a little house that sells waffles and bubble tea and all sorts of imported crap that says nothing of Romanian tradition.

What's the point of a traditional Christmas fair if you forsake the traditions? Surely, there's enough places in the city to buy waffles already.

One tradition they'll never shift, though, is that of mulled wine. I'm a big mulled wine fan and have several extremely fond memories around mulled wine, also. Remember being 19 and only a couple weeks home from Krakow, from Steemfest and drinking mulled wine at the Christmas fair and listening to a new song from my favorite band on the bus home. And I just, I love it all. I love all these little Christmas memories, all the things that mean something and the ones that mean nothing, and the way the cold and the holidays seem to make it all special.

And it seems weird, and it seems overpriced, and it seems even more than a little fickle, to be crowding for mulled wine or gingerbread with everything going on, but it's life and it goes. You find a way to make it beautiful despite the surrounding chaos. That's what I love about the Christmas Market, it's a constant. It seems despite everything, no matter where I was in my life, I'd come here come December and it would be like nothing at all changed. This year, standing in the cold, listening to an old Romanian band, I remembered last year's fair, half-hoping I'd run into someone from my dance class I had a crush on, and I thought really? And I thought yeah. And I thought. Life.

Big ole Rudolph nose. I'm actually quite pleased. It's the first time ever I actually have a matching scarf and cap. Guess some things do change. We grow up. Huh.

Did you ever go see Santa when you were small? This, above, is allegedly Santa's home, but it doesn't look like much and I like to think if I were small, I'd have questions. They took me to see him a couple times when I was a kid, not at the fair, but at my mom's work at the annual Christmas party. I wonder if I believed, but I don't really think so.

I don't remember when I stopped believing in Santa, except in some ways, I never have. I still believe in the magic of it, in giving someone something and saying "here, Santa left this for you". It's a marvelous thing, belief.

I'm rambling. To be fair, it's almost two AM and I make a mean mulled wine. But I'm happy. I love this time of year, even as I recognize the fair's just a pretext. To find joy. All these, the decorations and the gifts and the treats and the singing - they're all just finding reasons for happiness, and God knows we need more of those.

Are you a Christmasy person? If so, what gets you in that mood?

And if you're not, still, what gets you in that mood? :)