Buy fresh Nuremburg lebkuchen and a cookie tin or container you can always remember them by…especially since the cookies won’t last long!

Consider a project for the season that will be enhanced by each visit to a Christmas market, such as adding your growing collection of Glühwein mugs to a hook rack, collecting paper star lanterns to hang over your reading nook or bed, or even building a tiny village across your dining table runner with the variety of little houses you find.

Collect tiny handmade trinkets for a fun kids’ advent calendar this year or next!

Find the wackiest and coziest winter socks you can, more points if they look like they’re related to your ugly holiday sweater, so you can snuggle up all winter thinking of all the fun you had finding them.

Be sure to experience at least one holiday performance or tradition, whether it’s a choir in the town square, a glass blower at work (it is warmer there) or the torchlit mountain parade in the town of Freiburg.

Attend a St. Nicholas Parade and Krampus Run to be sure to wave at the many iterations of St. Nick and to jolt naughty children into their best behavior.

Take a good old-fashioned sleigh ride through the snow in Bavaria.

Visit massive ornament shops like the Käthe Wohlfahrt Christmas Village in Rothenburg ob der Tauber to feel like you feel stepped into pure Christmas joy!

Participate in activities like press printing your own Christmas card at the Gutenburg Museum in Mainz or learn to bake top-notch cookies in a cooking class.

Visit a themed Christmas market, such as the “Kinderweihnacht” for family-oriented fun, or one made just for dogs, like the “Berliner Hundeweihnachtsmarkt Sirius.”