Christmas Market river cruises
Have you seen advertisements for Christmas Market river cruises in Europe? And have you thought “I wonder if I would enjoy one of those”? And, if so, what excuse could I come up with to justify it?
Or have you thought, “who wants to go on a cruise about Christmas”? It’s hard enough to ignore Christmas at home. But if you did want to go, how would you justify it?
Ponder no more! Blonde is here to give you the answers to these questions you didn’t even know you had (until now).
It isn’t actually as difficult to figure out as you may think.
(And before you get all tied up in knots about being away on actual Christmas you should know that the cruises are in advance of Christmas. They’re usually 7 or 8 days and are taken between early November and mid-Christmas.)
The 2 types of people who should take Christmas Market river cruises
Type #1 People who love Christmas
You know who you are.
You go to the store on the day after Labor Day and hear them playing “I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” and you smile and sing along. You’ve been stockpiling Christmas gifts all year long when you see something you know someone you care about (or don’t, but have to buy a present for anyway) would enjoy. You have boxes of ornaments and eagerly look forward to hanging your collection of stuffed mice with Santa caps on your tree. You hope you can somehow wait until the day after Thanksgiving (the American one) to put up your tree. You complain about, but secretly look forward to, baking dozens of cookies to give out as Christmas gifts to all of your friends; even though they all quit eating gluten two years ago.
You’re what is called in the Christmas Market river cruise business “a natural”.
But you’re probably so darned nice that you never do anything for yourself. Once again – help is on the way!
Justifying going on a Christmas Market river cruise if you love Christmas
- Book it as a Christmas present for someone else (the fact that you are going to accompany the person is a small detail).
- Tell your husband/wife/InsignificantOther that you know he/she never knows what to get you for Christmas and you hate to be such a bother. So you have decided to make it easy to please you this year by thoughtfully selecting a Christmas market river cruise for them to “give” you.
- Express your desire to take the commercialism out of Christmas. Say you’re going back to olden times when people gave each other thoughtful, handmade gifts and you’re going to go to Europe where the tradition began. (Maybe it began there and maybe if didn’t, but the point of this argument isn’t establishing historical accuracy.)
- Say you realize you drive everyone crazy with all of your talk about Christmas so you have decided to give them a well-deserved break and go away by yourself. Say it’s a “win win” because you will love seeing the Christmas markets and your friends and family will be glad to be rid of you. (It’s important to hold back the tears/profanity if they agree about being glad to be rid of you.)
- Say (best done in a martyred tone) that you’re going to see a relative that no one else in the family can stand or communicates with; but really you go on a Christmas market river cruise. (No one knows that your emails are from the Danube, not Danbury.) Extra credit: Say you think it’s your Christian duty to visit the dreaded relative. If anyone points out that you aren’t actually Christian, tell them they’re indulging in hate speech.
- Come home from a doctor’s appointment (real or faked) and seem chipper in a slightly forced way. Then announce that you don’t know how many Christmases you will be around for so you’re going to indulge in your lifelong dream of a Christmas market river cruise.
- Just book it and go.
Type #1 People who have no interest in Christmas
When you hear that person humming along to “I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus” you want to dump hot egg nog over their head. Seeing the words “Christmas in July” makes you gag with disgust. You have managed to whittle your gift list down to one recipient; you. You dread the inevitable “holiday” parties where you will have to feign being jolly when all you’re really living for is December 26th. When the weather reporters start announcing that they are tracking Santa’s sleigh you envision sending up a drone to attack it. (In other words, you’re a lot like Blonde.)
Justifying going on a Christmas Market river cruise if you have no interest in Christmas
- Go on it and ignore Christmas. Just revel in the food, wine, beautifully decorated towns and good cheer (even if you stay grumpy).
- Use it as an excuse to buy nicer, less expensive but more authentic gifts this year. (AKA: If you can’t beat ’em, beat ’em.) If you usually face the prospect of holiday shopping with less enthusiasm than prepping for a colonoscopy, at least change the scenery (and drink something a lot better).
- Go to learn a lot of history and tradition and make new friends who are also running from the American Christmas Industrial Complex.
- Mollify your partner who loves Christmas by agreeing to go on the cruise. He or she can happily wallow in Christmas as you drink mulled wine and read your book, send emails to your friends extolling what a generous spouse you are or look over the cruise line’s catalog of itineraries you prefer. After all, you’ll be “owed” a cruise for your sacrifice.
- Use the cruise as an excuse to avoid family or friends you would otherwise be brow-beaten into seeing. So what if your cruise is for 8 days two weeks before Christmas? They only know it’s as long as you tell them it is.
- Just book it and go. (You might be wrong about how you feel about Christmas when you experience it in all new surroundings.)
Next steps if you are one of the two types of people who would enjoy a Christmas Market river Cruise
- Go to Viking River Cruises website and check out the itineraries that include Christmas markets.
- Pick the “Romantic Danube” because Blonde went on it last year. Why do you care about that? Because you can look up the posts and read about Nuremberg, Passau, Regensburg and other destinations before you leave. You can use that information to learn a (little) bit about each destination ahead of time.
- Book it now so you have something to look forward to whether or not you like Christmas.
Aren’t you glad we’re here to help you with life’s decisions?
FCC Disclosure (or is it FDA?): Blonde went on a Viking River Cruise, the Romantic Danube to be precise, in December of 2014. She didn’t pay one red cent to go! So she’s totally biased in favor of Viking and never in a million years would have gone on a Christmas Market cruise otherwise. On the other hand, she has already kissed up to Viking beyond belief and totally did not need to write this post.