October is over and that can mean only one thing, it’s Christmas season!
Elves have begun work on setting up stalls for the Christmas market with the Christmas Village set to run for six weekends (Friday to Sunday) from November 17 to December 23.
The Christmas Village will take up a portion of Upperkirkgate and Broad Street.
While Christmas is just around the corner, many readers are not excited to deck the halls and scoff down mince pies, at least at the Christmas Village.
Many expressed their frustration with past year’s events as well as what’s in store for this year.
Readers react to Aberdeen Christmas Village
While a couple of readers said they were “buzzing” at the prospect of the Christmas market stalls returning, positive comments were few and far between.
Iris McIntosh wrote: “I’m getting in the Christmas spirit putting the tree up this week.”
Steve Leslie was full of glowing praise: “It’s quite easy to stay away from it or go along, we all know it will be small and everything overpriced but it’s better than having absolutely nothing, Edinburgh is exactly the same but just on a bigger scale.”
Ba Humbug: ‘Aberdeen is the laughing stock of Scotland’
While on the flip side, Scrooge McDuck was pulling no punches when it came to criticism of the event from past years.
Les Chadderton said: “Oh, can’t wait, another road blocked.”
Julie Hay wrote: “Hope it’s better than previous years, Aberdeen is the laughing stock of Scotland with their sad attempt at Christmas markets.”
Davina Fa: “Come on seriously you call this a market !!! It’s a very small section of street for an entire city it’s absolutely laughable! It is possibly the biggest let down of a Christmas market yet.”
Several readers pointed to markets elsewhere, noting Perth’s vibrant events and London uses parks to host their Christmas markets. Several were rueing the fact Aberdeen does not do the same.
Sue Gail Channon commented: “Aberdeen isn’t good at markets is it? The farmers market that wasn’t brilliant but better than nothing has never returned since Covid and yet Perth, who were always superior, now have 50 stalls every month.”
Plans to move the market down the road to Union Terrace Gardens never materialised, leaving some EE readers disappointed.
Davina Fa added: “They could have had it in UTG and utilised the space and made a brilliant attempt at a market rather than closing a street completely off, as if there’s not enough obstacles to encounter going into town.
“The gardens could have attracted far more than something the width of the Marischal College. Every other city across Scotland utilise their parks.”
Andrew Troup agreed: “Aye and it should be Doon at the park the roads are bad enough without another one being closed.”
Keith Salmon summed up the majority of the readers’ comments: “It’s an absolute joke of a market if you can call it that. It’s been rubbish for years now and takes literally 5 minutes to go through it.”
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