The Budapest Christmas has expanded down the street. The Budapest Christmas Fair morphs into the St. Steven’s Advent Market. This paragraph is from a November 2011 family letter.
The St. Steven’s Advent Market has a more commercial feel than the Budapest Christmas Market down the street. It has corporate sponsors, like the Samsung skating rink, and when you buy a mug it has the Basilica on one side and sponsor’s logos on the other. Instead of live music, American Christmas classics play for the skaters. Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Nat Cole, I like it but I wonder how Hungarians, who were behind the Iron Curtain when these songs became popular, can feel nostalgia for Rudolph. Perhaps this market is not aimed at Hungarians, but at Brits and Americans, like me. Because of the brightly lit baroque basilica at the head of the square and the big blue Christmas tree in the square’s center this fair may be the most striking visually.
