MCFFEE's Old World Christmas Market set for Nov 17-19 in downtown Menominee

Gives for coffee lovers at the 2015 market.

The Menominee Farm & Food Exchange, organizers of the four-year-old Menominee Old World Christmas Market, is one step closer to achieving its dream of a true European-style outdoor market in 2017.

The holiday event, which has drawn as many as 1,200 shoppers in the past, is moving to a heated tent in downtown Menominee. It will be held on Nov. 17-18, in conjunction with Downtown Menominee’s popular weekend open house.

Thanks to a cooperative effort with the city of Menominee and the Menominee Downtown Business Association, the Christmas Market will be located in a large tent at Great Lakes Memorial Marina Park. 

Private donations will help fund the tent. 

“European holiday markets are held outdoors, with vendors in huts,” says Cody. “Markets are held for days, sometimes weeks at a time, and include food booths as well as booths that sell snacks, gifts and decorations. In Menominee the potential for chilly breezes off the bay make the heated tent a necessity,” says Glen Cody, a Christmas market organizer.

Cody and about 25 other area residents are part of the Menominee County Farm & Food Exchange, which organizes the Christmas market as well as the weekly M&M Farmers Market. Several of the organizers have attended similar markets in Germany and the United States over the years.

Typically, shoppers stroll down aisles decorated with Christmas lights, listen to the strains of carolers, and savor the aroma of German food.

“We’ll try our best to duplicate that atmosphere this year,” says Lisa Hilbelink, another organizer.  “Our goal is to recreate the feeling that visitors are attending a traditional market in Germany.”

For the first time, the market will be open two days, instead of one. It will operate from 5 to 8 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 17, in conjunction with the holiday parade and tree lighting.

Market organizers will accept up to 25 vendors this year, especially vendors who make Christmas decorations or gift items or items typically found at European-style markets, including hand-blown glass, woolens, lace, German smoking men and other woodenware, hand-carved nutcrackers, Swedish dala horses and felt ornaments, Ukrainian decorated eggs (pysanky), Russian nesting dolls, lace, blown glass, Scandinavian straw ornaments, Delft ornaments from Holland and other Old World crafts.

Criteria for selection will be available on the market’s Facebook page by July 25.

Forms are available by emailing menomineexmasmarket@hotmail.com or by calling 715-923-2198.

Gift baskets are always big sellers.

But wreaths and other decorations top everyone's list.