The icy, fog-laden air was heavy with the intoxicating aroma of warm-n-spicy mulled wine intermingling with that of freshly baked ginger bread. But that November evening, the gourmand in me had to take a backseat and allow the latent shopaholic to take centre stage. Food and drink would simply have to wait! I was after all at the legendary Belfast City Hall Christmas Market that makes its annual appearance for a few days in November every year, luring in people with its hearty festive bounty to decorate their homes with.
Housed in the fabulous City Hall gardens, the market is home to artisans and craftsmen from around the world who set up shop here selling every conceivable piece of furniture, tapestry, home ornament and decorative curio you can imagine.
One of the fist pieces of furniture to grab my attention was a set of quirky, ultra-light weight plastic chairs moulded in the shape of a naked, seated human form. Imported all the way from Turkey, these colourful chairs were soon being lapped up by amused shoppers including myself. Placing my order for a pair of yellow chairs for £200 each (approx. Rs 7,111) and giving in my shipping details for them to be couriered back home, I made my way to the stall selling African tribal artifacts for a spot of Christmas gift shopping. A pair of ebony Maasai warriors for a friend’s new coffee table for £50 (approx. Rs 3,555) and half a dozen wind chimes for my posse of relatives for £7 each (approx. Rs 497) were my acquisitions here. With a mother obsessed with gardening and garden ornaments, I couldn’t help picking up a whimsical old-school style carved wooden duck for £8 (approx. Rs 568) to add to her collection back home.
Having always been obsessed with anything Russian, the stall selling the very rare and supremely colourful Matryoshka dolls literally pulled me inside. These dolls are often designed to follow a particular theme and in this case the theme was blatantly obvious--Christmas! Painted in vivid festive hues of red, green, gold and silver, the dolls weren’t the most reasonable at £23.50 each (approx. Rs 1,670), but I bit the bullet and bought a pair to sit snugly atop my living room’s side board.
With my six foot tall Christmas tree having lost all but a few of its original ornaments over the years, I thought it was time to replenish the loss with a few new pieces. So off I went in search of the stall selling what a fellow shopper told me were the most beautiful ornaments she had ever seen. And my search for the perfect tree decorations ended at the stall manned by a carol-singing Polish man who kept the crowd around him amused both with his heavily accented sales pitch and his deep tenor singing as well. Here I bagged an assortment of six tiny porcelain bells at £3.50 each (approx. Rs 248), glass buntings at £12 a dozen (approx. Rs 850) and a silver angle for the tree top for £14 (approx. Rs 994).
Seeing that my retail therapy was almost complete with chairs from Turkey, wooden Masaai warriors from Africa, dolls from Russia, tree ornaments from Poland, I thought It was only fair that I ended the evening with a little desi twist. So I sauntered down to the seemingly popular (and dirt cheap!) Indian stall called ‘Mantra’ where I purchased a pair of printed paper lanterns for just £1.50 each (approx. Rs 106) to give to my Irish friends as thank you gifts for hosting me.
Almost skidding on the slippery, snow-melted streets of Belfast, my hands laden with bags from the Christmas Market, a very potent thought entered my mind… just how was I supposed to cram in so many festive goodies into my tiny suitcase and my paltry 20kg baggage allowance? Well, I suppose only a Christmas miracle could save me now!
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