The Herald - The Herald Magazine
It pains me to admit it but Edinburgh wins the Christmas market wars
BROWSING in a supermarket the other day, I came across a product I’d never seen before. Mince pie flavoured porridge. Now being a journalist, I am, of course, a cynical and sneery sort of fella. So you’d probably assume I’d be wary of such a product, concluding that it was cobbled together with the sole purpose of making a fast buck in the run up to Christmas.
It really was the sort of tacky item most newspaper hacks would have a field day grumbling about in print. What a sham! What a shame! Christmas is kaput! Killed by the ker-ching of the capitalist coin machine.
However, gazing at that seasonal box of breakfast oats, I knew I wouldn’t be writing my version of that argy-bargy article. So, instead, I popped the mince pie flavoured porridge in my shopping basket and went skipping to the till while whistling Wizzard’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday.
And as I whistled, I thought to myself: “Mince pie flavoured porridge? Yas!!! Bring it on, Santa, baby! And while you’re at it, how about some turkey flavoured Corn Flakes? And maybe when I get home I can dive into a hot tub filled with cranberry infused bubble bath. Then I’ll rub my back down using a sprig of holly as a loofa...”
From the above little episode you’ve probably guessed by now that I happen to like Christmas. Quite a lot.
CHRISTMAS TWEE
Not the religious stuff, though. Nah. It’s the rampant commercialism I adore. The naked gimme, gimme, gimme of it all, tastefully disguised as a fat man in a red and white suit chortling and chucking presents in all directions.
I love everything about Christmas. (Minus the ‘away in a manger’ biz.) I love ghost stories around a crackling log fire. I love Scrooge being a rotter. I love watching The Snowman on Channel 4 for the gadzillionth time.
I love subserviently listening to the Queen’s speech while trying hard not to remember that Liz happens to be Andy’s mum, and she really should have spent less time queening around and more time raising a halfway decent batch of sprogs.
I love the Christmas tree. I love the Christmas twee. But most of all? I love a Christmas market.
Of course Christmas markets are a fairly new addition to our Yuletide festivities. The concept was imported from mainland Europe. (No doubt Nigel Farage has plans to ban them.) I came across my first UK-style Christmas market about 15 years ago in Birmingham.
I remember being enchanted by row-upon-row of wintry log cabins, each one looking remarkably like an over-sized cuckoo clock. Though instead of containing an irritating bird, the cabins were loaded with booze, bonhomie and tasty bites to eat.
Scotland took a while to catch up with the idea, though nowadays our major cities, and more ambitious towns, all boast their very own Christmas markets.
They do, however, differ greatly in ambition, style and seasonal cheer. With this in mind, I decided to sample the offerings of those two great rivals, Glasgow and Edinburgh, to discover who has won this year’s Crimbo Wars by devising the most magnificent and memorable market…
GLASGOW: MILES BETTER?
“Wit ye havin’ pal?” asks the barman in The Ranch.
“Do you have eggnog?” I ask.
He looks at me like I’m some sort of eccentric weirdo.
“Eggnog?” he smirks. “It’s only the beginning of December, pal.” Clearly he thinks it’s far too early to be asking for such a festive drink.
“But isn’t The Ranch slap-bang in the middle of Glasgow’s Christmas market?” I say to him, quite reasonably, I think. “If it’s too early to be enjoying a