Holiday tradition
Christkindl Market draws in the crowds year after year
KITCHENER — Fred and Jenny Aldred are nearly as popular as Santa Claus.
For 18 years the Midland couple’s model train exhibit in city hall entranced thousands of small children and their parents during the annual Christkindl Market.
Sitting on the floor, small children watch the model trains — passenger, freight, trolley and bullet — move along tracks carefully laid out in the Conestoga Room.
The annual Christkindl Market, a tradition dating back to 1310 in Munich, Germany was brought to Kitchener in 1997. Just a few years after that, organizers asked Fred and Jenny to bring their model trains to the annual four-day long event.
“It brings a lot of enjoyment to both young and old,” said Jenny. “It’s pretty cool.”
Beside her are twin brothers, Chad and Scott McDonald of Kitchener. They started watching these model trains when they were about six.
“It’s fascinating,” said Chad. Their annual visits to this room became a Christmas tradition, and led to a friendship between the their parents and the Aldreds. Now, Chad and Scott, who are 14, help the Aldreds keep an eye on the model trains as children and parents crowd around the ropes to watch.
“We stop kids from touching the tracks and breaking the trains,” said Scott. “It’s like crowd control.”
Fred is standing nearby, watching the people watching his trains. The tracks, trains, buildings and vehicles in the display are only about a third of Fred’s entire collection. It as something Fred did with his dad, and he continues the tradition. It takes two days to set it all up.
“We have lots of them who stop in every year,” said Fred. “We watched kids in strollers who are now coming in as teenagers.
“These guys were in their strollers when they first came.,” he said motioning to Chad and Scott. “They didn’t listen then, and they don’t listen now.”
This year’s Christkindl Market featured 95 vendors along King Street West and inside city hall. It attracts vendors and shoppers from as far away as Toronto. Annual attendance is estimated at 40,000.
Some waited in line for 45 minutes at Das Fritter Haus. Inside the booth apples are sliced, deep fried and tossed in cinnamon and sugar.
“These are delicious, they really are, they are literally made fresh to order,” said Katie Beauchamp of Kitchener.
King Street West was busy with people. But inside city hall was a slow-moving mass of people packed shoulder to shoulder. Organizers set up three extra cash machines for the shoppers.
For 10 years, Cheryl Hutter had a booth inside city hall for her business called Collectible Things — hot and cold wraps, placemats, runners, wall hangings.
This year, she had to set up a booth on the street.
“Actually, I am doing better out here,” said Hutter of Collectible Things. “In there, the people just walk with the flow of people, so they don’t really stop.”
She sells her goods at shows from Niagara Region to Alliston and Toronto and London, but looks forward to the Christkindl Market more than the others.
“This is my best show of the year,” said Hutter, who is from Kitchener.
Stefan Marinov spent a lot of time talking about the beautiful pens he made from pieces of the corduroy road that was discovered under King Street South in Waterloo during LRT construction. The road was built in the 1790s. When the region was giving away pieces of the road, Marinov rode his bicycle to the landfill site to get some of the old wood. He road away with a knapsack stuffed with damp wood that was more than 200 years old.
He makes domino sets, cheese boards, pens, cork screws for his business Koka-Bora Creations. This was his second time at the Christkindl Market. He made 100 pens out of the wood, and sold 73.
“Everybody seems to be loving the idea of the corduroy road pens,” said Marinov.
When the wood dried out it started to fall apart, so Marinov treated it with a preservative before making the pens.
“That basically binds everything together,” said Marinov.
Artisans use the market to build a base of customers, get brand recognition and hopefully drive online sales in the future. That’s why Beth MacIntosh wanted SquirrelDuck Coffee in this year’s Christkindl Market.
“The crowds are amazing, it is so busy here,” said MacIntosh as shoppers pressed around her display of French presses, coffee mugs, beans, teas and tea pots.
MacIntosh is from Kitchener, but some vendors came from Toronto, including Salt and Mustard, which is owned by Olga Balicki.
“It’s been fantastic, people are really great,” said Balicki. Like several vendors Balicki uses the mobile payment app Square, which is based in a nearby office building.
“I met a few people who work there,” said Balicki laughing. “I use it a lot. I do not have debit yet, but Square is great.”