Year three. Remember year one and year two? [Read the year one post if you have no idea what I'm talking about.] Walking into the Nutcracker Market feels like a time warp. The same booths in the same locations, the same free food, the same slice of upper-middle class Texas walking around in its glitter camo pants. The only thing that changes is the entry price: up a dollar every year.

My mom and I both wanted to take it easy this year, so we went after 5, when the tickets are half price. All the booths were still open, the free dips and spreads were still flowing, everything was good. We were there for about two hours, which I think is just enough preholiday shopping madness for me, especially since I’m still getting over this dizziness thing (I still had to stop once for a nice sit to steady the world again).

There were a few unique shops there, like the people who put cherries in everything, or the SPCA with their puppies, or the frozen loaf cake folks, but most of the booths were selling the same stuff as at least three others. You have your dip-and-salsa people, your scarf-and-fur-vest people, your chocolate people, your silver jewelry people, your home decorations people, your kids’ accessories people . . . and then it repeats. Twelve times.

Eighty percent of the vendors at the Nutcracker Market take everyday objects and add one of the following: sour cream, glitter, chocolate, a fringe, cutesy slogans*, leopard print, your (child’s) name, cream cheese, or a cross. The rest make jewelry.

Not that this is a bad thing. If you were looking for a giant-sparkly-cross-embellished pink-fur-lined camo-print handbag, you’d come to the right place. I went for the free food samples, personally.

And I went home satisfied. Didn’t have to eat dinner tonight, which is fine by me, though I could have done with less cream cheese (half the dips are meant to be poured over it). I came home with a jar of champagne mustard and a faux-shearling vest**. Supposedly the mustard, mixed with half-and-half(?!), tastes good over chicken. Or I might eat it out of the jar, we’ll see.

All in all, I had fun. The first time you go to the Market is always an eye-opening experience, but after that, two hours a year mingling with the super-shoppers is enough to maintain that sense of wonder that we all manage to coexist, and in the same city, no less.

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* “I was born free. Now I’m expensive.” “So loved (John 3:16)”

** Technically a Christmas present from my mom. I wanted this vest last year, but they’d run out of my size.

Tags: NaBloPoMo

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