Christmas shopping, parade in season with Kewaunee's Christkindlmarkt

KEWAUNEE - The Kewaunee Area Chamber of Commerce helps the city and county get ready to celebrate the holiday spirit with its 12th annual Christkindlmarkt weekend on Friday and Saturday.

The festivities center around the Holiday Market, an old-fashioned, German-style Christmas craft market; and the Holiday Lights Parade through downtown Kewaunee.

Open from 3 to 9 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, the market — held  at Lakehaven Hall, 96 Ellis St. — offers visitors the chance to browse and shop for gift items from vendors offering clothing and accessories, ceramic items, homemade foods and more. For those getting hungry while checking out the items, German cuisine also will be available.

And, Santa Claus will be at Lakehaven Hall after his appearance in Friday's parade and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. Children can meet the Man in Red and participate in other holiday-related activities while Santa is in the hall.

The parade starts at 6:30 p.m. Friday, heading through downtown along Ellis Street.

Visitors also can take part in the Christmas Stroll throughout this weekend and next, Nov. 23-24, not just in Kewaunee but at several locations in downtown Algoma and elsewhere in the county.

Twenty-three businesses and organizations will host shoppers from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. all four days and stamp their "passports" (available from the chamber website or at the businesses). Those who get stamps from each location are entered in drawings to win cash prizes. A number of the businesses also are offering stroll specials; information is available on the chamber website.

Lakehaven Hall also is hosting the return of award-winning author Rochelle Pennington for a free talk on the Edmund Fitzgerald, perhaps the most famous Great Lakes shipwreck in history, at 5:30 p.m. Saturday. The iron ore freighter sank in a Lake Superior storm on No. 10, 1975, with a loss of all 29 men on board.

Pennington gave a talk on the ill-fated Rouse Simmons, aka the "Christmas Tree Ship" that sank in Lake Michigan off Two Rivers in 1912, that was attended by more than 200 maritime history buffs during last year's Christkindlmarkt.

For more information on Christkindlmarkt, call 920-388-4822 or go to kewaunee.org.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Christmas shopping, parade in season with Kewaunee's Christkindlmarkt