DALEY PLAZA — With the holiday season fast approaching, Chicagoans are ready for the cozy delights of our yearly outdoor yuletide market, the Christkindlmarket. With the recent spate of warmer weather the Christkindlmarket has announced they will retool the annual celebration of hot drinks and rosy cheeks to suit the current climate with a new tropical paradise theme.
“Past Christkindlmarkets have harkened back to the Christmas faires of old Europe,” said Ernest Borgen-Jaeger, head of marketing and crafter of fine wooden toys, “but when it’s 60, who wants to drink mulled wine and eat raclette? The warmer the weather the more you notice how much that stuff smells like melted foot on bread.”
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According to Christkindlmarket staff, the new season will be fully ditching the Alpine aesthetic for a new tropical island vibe, complete with daily luaus, a pig roast, hulu dancing, tiki drinks, jerk chicken, sand, coconuts, a steel drummer, sunscreen, and a booth where you can get your hair braided and beaded.
“I’ll admit we kinda had to scramble on this one.” said Borgen-Jaeger. “When we realized we were putting together the market and there hadn’t even been a day under 35 we sort of panicked and sent someone to Party City and told them to grab anything that reminded them of Jimmy Buffett.”
“Then we had to send them back because they bought a bunch of Moana-themed birthday decorations and we can not afford to cross Disney.”
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While the warmer weather has been a cause to celebrate for people who hate Chicago’s infamous winters yet continue to live here so they can complain, fans of the Christkindlmarket’s traditional fare have expressed concern about the changes.
“I bring my grandkids down from Evanston every year to pick out an ornament for the tree,” said Justine Powell, 65, “but when we went to the little shop with the cute ornaments they just had novelty t-shirts that said horrible things like ‘suns out buns out’ and ‘I got so horny at Señor Frog's I was asked to leave.’ Where’s the Christmas cheer in that?”
“We got a lot of our merchandising for this year from a Señor Frog's that was closing in Orlando,” said Borgen-Jaeger, “but steins and stockings are out, conch shells painted with NFL team logos are in!”
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The Christkindlmarket will officially open Friday with a full calypso band and BOGO margs for the ladies. Sources within Christkindlmarket say that if current climate changes continue, we can look forward to next year’s theme, “water rationing.”
