Christmas Village at Estonian Open Air Museum

The Christmas Village was this weekend only.  Friday we were a bit busy, and Charlie had training to do on Saturday, so we had no choice but to take advantage of this opportunity today.  It was a bit chilly and breezy so actually a little uncomfortable at times.  I definitely admire the Estonians though.  They are hard core.  As we were driving to the museum, we noticed that a race was taking place so had to snap some pictures.  It was well represented.  The Estonians are very active people, and clearly, a little snow, ice, and cold temperatures are not going to keep them from running.

 As it turns out, between this race which was set up close by the museum plus the fact it was the Christmas Village weekend, we could find no close parking.  So...we parked at Rocca Al Mare mall and walked to the museum which is probably a 15 minute walk.

 It is a lovely walk, with views of the sea beyond, and these ducks.

 Unfortunately, I forgot to charge the camera so ended up with very few shots of this excursion.  As I snapped a picture of the village shop, I realized my battery was dying.  It is pretty though!

 Here, we are walking to the chapel.

 This is inside the Sutlepa Chapel listening to the Children’s Choir of Nõmme Youth Club sing.  Since we had a tough time finding parking, and then had to hoof it into the museum, we missed most of the performance.  It was quite crowded when we showed up, but I stuck it out and finally managed to squirm up front to get a picture.  I caught the last two songs which were O Christmas Tree and We Wish You a Merry Christmas, which were both sung in Estonian.

 As you can see, most kids are lugged around on sleds here during weather like this.  There were a few prams to be seen though.  

 Can you tell what is coming?

That's right!  A one-horse-open-sleigh!!!  With jingling sleigh bells!  

I had read that you could do that, but then could not find it anywhere so assumed I made a mistake.  I was so tickled to see that we could do this and was determined we were going to.  However, the Estonians are great people...but not great turn takers.  We waited and waited, only to have a big group run up and jump on the sleigh before we could politely give our money to the driver.  After waiting a second time and seeing there really was no order to getting to ride and refusing to be rude...not to mention Charlie and the kids were super cold and standing by the fire.  I began to feel like Clark Grizwold and kept expecting to hear Clara's eyes were frozen so decided it was enough to know I had the opportunity to do it and wisely chose to pass.  

 We walked around a few of the farms and went inside to see various traditions.  The cabins were quite dim so I didn't get any pictures.  It really was cold and everyone was complaining of cold and hunger so we began making our way back to the car.  On our way, this guy stopped us.  I'm assuming he was supposed to be Father Christmas (or something along those lines).  He had an awesome costume spoke some English. He asked Clara to sing something.  Well, that is what we thought he asked, so she did a beautiful and thorough rendition of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.  He rewarded all of us with a piece of yummy chocolate candy from his sack!

We hung out in the gift shop long enough to thaw out before we began our trek back to the mall.  Originally we were planning to get something to eat downtown, but decided to get something at the mall.  We settled on some bistro type place which was decent.

It was a great day for me and again, I feel so blessed to be able to explore this beautiful country.  I'm working on finding some good clips of Estonians singing traditional songs in their language.  It is quite beautiful so I'll keeping looking.