By all reasonable measures, my 3-year-old son and I should have gone to bed. We’d flown overnight to Frankfurt, Germany, via Amsterdam and boarded Riverside Debussy in a jet-lagged daze. Instead, I dragged our wrecked carcasses into town.
Frankfurter Weihnachtsmarkt, one of Germany’s oldest and largest Christmas markets, was strollable from the pier. Within minutes, I knew I’d made the right decision. Sausages as thick as fire hoses hung from the rafters of wooden chalets. Carolers’ voices filled the air, pierced by the gleeful squeals of children on swing rides. Families gathered by train tracks to watch a steam locomotive chug through in full holiday regalia, festooned with bows and boughs. Julian, being a small child in the company of a large train, was instantly revived, especially after he discovered a “mouse” on a stick (not a mouse at all, but a pear enrobed in chocolate).
And there it was, the case for taking a Christmas-market cruise: Why cram the holiday into one frantic morning when you could keep it going, port after port, all week long?
Photography provided by Riverside Luxury Cruises
Our Riverside Luxury Cruises journey sailed roundtrip from Frankfurt, tracing the Rhine through a succession of market towns that appeared to my Hollywood-schooled eye almost staged: cobblestoned squares, half-timbered houses, towering Gothic cathedrals. But this was no film set. It’s just what these towns look like — and that’s before the mulled wine.
My own relationship with Christmas has always been complicated: Jewish father, Wiccan mother, a tree and presents through the eigth grade, and then an abrupt stop when my parents decided I was “too old for Christmas.” I have been overcorrecting ever since, first by marrying into a family with a deep, unironic love of the Hallmark Channel, and now by raising a son upon whom I can lavish my repressed enthusiasm.
Still, even my zeal has its limits. I worried a week of back-to-back Christmas markets could feel Groundhog Day–esque. A few ports in, they did start to blur, but in the best possible way.
Clusters of lebkuchenherzen (gingerbread hearts) swung from stalls with piped messages of seasonal cheer. Life-size nutcrackers stood sentry and ruddy-cheeked revelers clustered around barrel tables, mittened hands cupping gluhwein (mulled wine). In Bonn, I loved watching schoolchildren in neon vests parade hand in hand. In Cologne, the market belonged largely to adults after dark, packed shoulder-to-shoulder and flushed with holiday cheer. And in Düsseldorf, I kept circling back to a beautiful, hand-painted carousel, the kind of centerpiece that made it clear why people cross oceans for Christmas markets.
Back on Debussy, the Yuletide touches were more restrained. The 110-passenger ship felt elegant yet understated — a floating sanctuary with floor-to-ceiling windows, sumptuous bedding, and velvet and leather accents. In the lounge, ornate gingerbread houses and white trees glowed with lights. During a chef-led cookie-decorating session, grownups were served Rüdesheimer Kaffee, a chocolatey coffee drink spiked with brandy. Nothing felt overdone or tacky; the holiday spirit shone through less in spectacle than in small, generous gestures from the crew.
Our Croatian butler, Ivan, won Julian over after serving him popcorn from an old-fashioned cart. Our Ukrainian housekeeper, Tetiana, stole his heart with her enormous bear hugs. And never mind the breakfast where a white-gloved waiter presented Bruno, my son’s beloved stuffed chimpanzee, with a banana on a silver platter.
While that may have been the funniest dish served all week, it was hardly the most impressive. At the ship’s Waterside Restaurant, lavish buffet breakfasts and lunches gave way to fine dining at night: duck à l’orange, smoked beef crudo with horseradish cream and potato mousseline, and German flan with crème chantilly. The bread and jam were made on board, and dinners featured fine German red and white wines from different regions. Debussy also has a vintage room for chef’s tasting menus with sommelier pairings as well as a glamorous cocktail bar, where drinks are built around fresh fruit and housemade infusions. Traveling with a preschooler, I experienced neither, but I dreamed about both while ordering room service in my pajamas.
Between ports, we sailed the UNESCO-listed Upper Middle Rhine Valley, a 40-mile stretch from Koblenz to Bingen, where castles still punctuate the hillsides. Many date back as early as the 11th century and were later revived during the 19th century Rhine Romanticism movement. To this day, vineyards climb at improbable angles, villages appear in tidy bursts of color and a 14th century toll station reminds me that the rich have always found a way to monetize a view.
Did the cruise activities start to feel routine? Of course. That’s also why Julian loved it. Every morning, Christmas started over: another whimsical carousel, another whipped-cream hot chocolate mustache, another 3.50-euro carnival ride I was powerless to refuse. For me, the pleasure was simpler. I got to give my son the kind of holiday fantasy I once envied, and this time nobody was going to call it off because I had aged out. If anything, I’m just getting started.
