Christmas in Dordrecht

I am way behind. While I see decorated Christmas trees, presents, homemade cookies, all kind of decorations in every blog, I stil have to do an awful lot. Let's start to blog about the weekend of the 13th and 14th. Due to swaps and blogparties I haven't been able to show you this:

This is the Groenmarkt in Dordrecht on an average day (who thought these grey shutters could only be found in France?)
But half December it looks like this:

There is a Christmas market in the streets;

At one side of the street there are all kind of booths.

Like this one from 'de onderneming', one of my favorite antique shops.

On the other side there are houses

Some beautifully decorated to contribute to the Christmas atmosphere.
The best is this one; 'Wonen in de winkel' in translation: 'Living in the shop'

Two guys who open their home for public to sell all they have. And I have to say they have a lot. Even this cupboard was for sale, though it has a firm price ticket; 4.000 euros. You can walk through their house;

Enter the kitchen. I love it; it's the famous American kitchen designed by Raymond Loewy, who also designed the Coca Cola bottle and the Lucky Strike logo, to name a few.

Admire some clever ways of showing the merchandise.

These guys told me that they were getting tired of buying new cupboards so they decided to built one in. This one isn't for sale obviously. They buy at least one new antique or vintage complete dinner service every year.

The decorated Christmas tree was for sale too.

But I already decided not to do that. Neither did I buy a large tree this year, I bought a small one and I already had a plan how to decorate it;

Yep some shoes...

Some fine white embroidery....

a mask...all ingredients for:

The evening dress Christmas tree!
I have such a large tree every year that I wanted to do something special with this small one. Like every year the tree is decorated with glass ornaments; vintage ones;

like this one, that has belonged to my parents and is at least 50 years old. One of my favorites from childhood.

Or this vintage one, found during the last brocante hunt with my cousin.

We have new ornaments too.
There is no plain ball in our tree though.
I love these kind of ornaments that are still blown as they used to, real craftmanship;

I cannot help showing you this Kees ornament. A swan like bird, blown by a friend of my fathers' who died at the age of 54 of cancer. This time of the year is filled with memories, some good, some bad. I do hope everybody has a great Christmas with the ones you love, a Christmas to remember. Enjoy!