2012 March Girls Trip–Seiffen, Germany
The perfect little Christmas village – the home of all traditional German Christmas items – with the best price. Not cheap… just cheaper and well worth a trip or two or three. This was my third trip to Seiffen and I had a list of for sure’s and some maybe’s dancing around in my head. We met on base at 4:00 and were in Seiffen by 9:00ish. We checked into our hotel (below), right on main street in Seiffen, talked until midnight and went to sleep. At 8:30 we met for breakfast and were ready to shop at 10:00am when the stores opened.
A lot of the shops we know well by now. The one below has the collection of miniatures that Mindy loves and the Minor and Minor’s wife that I’m still wishing I got. It’s in the same parking lot as the yellow store with a good selection of nutcrackers, especially the small size.
Emma and I did some damage at one of the best nutcracker stores. Emma found another pyramid she loved and I got a couple more nutcrackers for my growing collection.
The big décor outside each of the stores help make Seiffen adorable. Because it’s close to Easter we got to see a lot of the traditional wooden rabbits they have on display with plenty of small ones to buy.
a minor, a pyramid and some Easter bunnies
This one was a store we can’t be in yet, although we’d seen a lot of the store’s merchandise in other stores. It was a beautiful store. You can see the Minor’s Wife/angel in all the upper windows.
Oh my goodness, aren’t these the cutest little girls you’ve ever seen. Too bad they’re 158 Euro each. I want all 3!
A little history about my big purchase -- “Seiffen was originally a mining town. Christmas was the only time in the year when the heard and dangerous work in the mines came to a rest. The miners after their last shirt hung their lanterns at the entrance of the mine and the lights formed an arch of light. It is believed that the Schwibbogen is created from this tradition. As the silver and tin deposits declined, former miners had to look for new ways to feed their families and went into wood carving. The lighted arches tell the story of the towns proudly remembered mining history. Nutcrackers, ‘Smokers’, Pyramids and schwibbogen are some of the many Christmas goods made in Seiffen.”
One of the maybes on my list was a Schwibbogen… but but I hadn’t previously seen one that I really loved – until I saw this one high on a shelf in this store that I couldn’t stop thinking about and finally (on the last day) went and bought. It’s called ‘ALP VILLAGE’. I guess I loved it because it reminds me of the churches I see in the distance everywhere I drive – but mostly in Bavaria. I showed some of my experienced German friends (Heidi and Yvonne) my interest and they told me it was the highest quality Schwibbogen brand – Muller - known because of it’s scalloped arches, and was on a really good sale. Normally 428 Euro on sale for 247 Euro because it had been sitting out on display. With a VAT form (to exclude me from paying 19% German taxes) it cost 200 Euro. Even better.
Chris coaxed me into buying it over the phone. I think it’ll be fun to pull out each Christmas as a fun memory of Germany.
Later that day Geneva and I found the Muller showroom and I spotted my regular priced Schwibbogen in the window. I love that the houses light up too. It’s tradition to stick your Schwibbogen’s in your windows so the lighted arches can be seen from outside but I think I’ll just put it on a shelf or buffet. This store was filled with gorgeous wood carved pyramids too.
Lunch at the Italian place attached to our hotel… fabulous bruschetta here!
From here we headed on to Poland… but on our way back we spent one more night in Seiffen. After we checked into our same hotel we went for a night walk on main street and had fun peering into the lit shop windows. Definitely window shopping – and getting ready for our last hurrah in the morning!
After breakfast we split up and really got serious about our Seiffen purchases… anything we had been thinking about during the trip we went back and looked at – and usually bought! At 1:00 we met to eat fried potatoes and bratwurst and then hit the road for home. What I should have taken a picture of was the unloading. Shopping bags with names of 10 ladies written in black sharpie helped us know who’s pile they all went in. Someone grabbed them, someone read the name and handed them off to others who put them in the right piles. Luckily we had put our hardtop car carrier on top of Emma’s van because we filled it right up. Good trip.