I Murdered Rudolph…and I’d Do It Again

I killed Rudolph. Not directly, mind you, but I do have reindeer blood on my hands. 

In my defense, his fur felt warm and I knew it would look good on the sofa in my office. 

This happened years ago, in Zurich, at a Christmas market I stumbled upon outside my hotel, set along the Zürichsee, Lake Zurich, that splits the city in half. I was strolling along languidly in the bitingly cold Swiss night, a mulled wine in my hand…and I saw reindeer pelts for sale.   

Reindeer pelts! 

The shopkeep told me the reindeer had all come from Finland.  

“Like, these died naturally, or they were killed for the pelt?” I asked. 

She shrugged. 

Thus, my culpability in the death of a reindeer. Maybe it wasn’t Rudolph, though. Probably Donner or Blitzen. 

That pelt is back in Louisiana, in storage, and I am missing it right about now as snow begins to fall on another winter season and the mercury drops below freezing. But I hold out some hope: The Christmas markets here in Prague, where I now live, open this weekend and maybe luck smiles upon me and a seller of reindeer pelts shows up. 

This is my absolute favorite time of year—October through the end of December. It’s like the first nine months of the year are coiled springs inside a Jack in the Box and on Oct. 1 the box springs open and Jack comes flying out. That’s how I feel about these final three months. 

Absolutely love them…and they’re made all the better by European Christmas markets. 

If you’ve never been to a Christmas market in Europe, you gotta go. Period. Book tickets now for this year or next. These markets are the epitome of the Christmas season.  

Along with Prague and Zurich, I’ve wandered through Christmas markets in London, Munich, Dresden, and Bucharest, among others. My wife, Yulia, and I are talking about hitting the market in Paris on Christmas Day this year.  

No matter the city, Christmas markets are, to me, the perfect way to end another year: Cold nights. A light, Hallmark Christmas movie snow, if you’re lucky. Hot mulled wine. Sausages and ham grilling on open pits perfuming the night in a meaty mist. Little wooden huts, decorated with pine boughs and lights, selling everything from handmade Christmas ornaments to gingerbread to sweaters and candies. And, with any luck, reindeer pelts. 

Prague’s main Christmas market is widely considered one of the best in Europe. CNN a few years ago named it among the top 10 globally. A very big part of that is the ambiance. 

The market stretches across nearly the whole of Old Town Square, almost 100,000 square feet right in the heart of the city and surrounded by Gothic, Baroque, and Rococo architecture dating back to the 14th century. The Our Lady Before Tyn church, with her two 260-foot Gothic towers—locally known as Adam and Eve—stands sentry over the scene. 

Right in the center: A ginormous, evergreen tree trucked in from a nearby Czech forest and decorated in so many lights it’s as though Santa sent his personal elves to oversee the process. Which means, frankly, that after dark is the best time to visit the Prague Christmas market. Definitely more crowded, but the atmosphere is as Christmas-y as Christmas gets. 

During my first Christmas in Prague, back in 2018, I hit the market three times a week during the five weeks it was open. At least once a week, I’d go for lunch, when the market is less crowded, and sit on the second or third floor of a Starbucks right on the square and look down on the market while writing. Happy days.  

If I couldn’t get to Old Town because of deadlines, then at least twice a week I’d wander over to the smaller market in a park just a 90-second walk from my apartment. Prague is filled with smaller, neighborhood Christmas markets, and many of those are just as cool.  

Sausage and mulled wine was my primary dinner most nights, followed by gingerbread for dessert. I’d sit on a bench near the Old Town Hall and its famous, 15th-century Astronomical Clock and just soak up the aura of the place. The lights, the music, the smells, the crowd bundled up against another Czech winter. 

My words do not do any of that justice, I realize. Christmas markets really are about the feeling inside, a contentedness, that’s hard to capture on the printed page. 

Best I can do is urge you to experience one for yourself, if you haven’t. And I would encourage you to consider Prague. Between the main market in Old Town Square, and the collection of secondary markets around the city, you can spend several days here bathed in the Old-World Christmas spirit that makes this particular holiday all the more special…though maybe not for Rudolph.