Girls trip to Seiffen, Germany
When Emma suggested a spontaneous shopping overnighter to Seiffen she had no idea six of us would jump on board so quickly. With packed bags, snacks for the road and enough Euro to do some serious damage we met outside Emma and Megan’s houses and drove 5 hours North-East to Seiffen, close to the Czech border – but still in Germany.
Now first, let me explain how these girl trip shopping adventures go… Day one is purely window shopping, discussing, taking notes, validating each other’s opinions and thoroughly analyzing what each store has to offer. It’s long hard work… and certainly no man is cut out for it. Day 2 is about revisiting EVERY store, helping each other make decisions, more validating, making purchases and spending money… all of it.
Seiffen sits in the heart of the Ore Mountains, which are famous for many Christmas traditions. As the silver and tin deposits declined, former miners had to look for new ways to feed their families. In addition to lace making and weaving, the inhabitants went into wood carving. Nutcrackers, "smoking men", "pyramids" (carousels with figures of the Christmas story) and Schwibbogen (wooden arcs with candles in the windows, symbolizing the opening of a mine) are the most traditional of many Christmas goods made in the Ore Mountains. Seiffen is also a center of the wooden toy industry. The reason to come here for our German Christmas decorations is that it’s so much cheaper than anywhere else in Germany… and they took our VAT forms so we don’t have to pay German taxes.
We arrived around 1:00 and wasted no time getting into the first store. From there we hopped from store to store down the hill and back up the other side. The streets of Seiffen are lined with one Christmas store after another. Some with mainly Nutcrackers, some with mainly pyramids, but most with a mixture of everything. Last year we came in November when it was snowy and cold… this time it was gorgeous. It’s so great having Christmas in July.
The miner and his wife… popular Christmas decorations based on the history of this mining Christmas town…
The Seiffen octagonal church is kind of iconic in Christmas decorations all over Germany. Little wooden replicas sit on Schwibbogen or within miniature Christmas villages. The church has a unique graveyard sitting beside. Each grave has a beautifully tended flower garden on top. I love it.
This is a huge Schwibbogen. People put these in their windows to light them up… 
Geneva in our cute blue decorated room… (Holly – this room was warm and not near as hysterical as last year. We missed you.)
Melissa at our hotel’s yummy breakfast buffet…
Outside our Hotel… Emma, me, Geneva, Brittany, Mindy and Megan… ready for Day 2 of shopping.
The miner’s wife… and then Geneva and I standing by the white nutcracker. This guy is one of the ones I bought this year… only much smaller… and Geneva already has him. I just love him!
Cute little Christmas store with the minor symbol on top… and an old Seiffen School…
Everyone had their own interests and it was fun to see what everyone was excited about. Megan and Mindy loved the miniatures. Some people were shopping for Schwibbogens, or pyramids, or tree decorations, or a bunch of different things. Who knew I would be so drawn to nutcrackers. I already have a couple picked out that I’m going to buy next year!
Geneva had to pull out her flower girls as we waited for our Italian lunch. She kept loving these in every store and decided she just had to get them. She’s so happy with her girls!
The ladies outside our full trunks ready to drive back… 
Beautiful German countryside on the way home… 
Side note: On the way to Seiffen, we saw a huge truck which had tipped over on the other side of the autobahn and was blocking ALL lanes of traffic… and since most autobahn don’t have hardly any type of shoulder, NO ONE could pass. We were shocked at how many miles of cars were stopped behind it. Most people were out of their cars, talking to each other, and although they probably didn’t really know what was holding them up, they had a good idea they would be stuck here for a good couple hours. It’s called a STAU and it’s rather frequent here in Germany. Luckily we haven’t been stuck in one that bad, and thank goodness we weren’t stuck in that one today – taking up precious shopping time. It did make me think that I need more water and ‘snacks’ in the back of the van in case of just this kind of emergency. About 10 km down the road we could see a polizei at the end of the stau telling cars to turn around and go back the other way. Another kilometer down the road they had blocked off traffic and were making EVERYONE exit the autobahn. That caused a major STAU itself. It was quite something.