Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: Christmas

This jewellery store was entirely covered in what looked like Christmas lights. This might be the usual lighting, but I doubt it because of the costs and maintenance involved. It was still less than two weeks after New Year's, so I figured they still hadn't taken down the Christmas decorations yet.

When I got home from the U.S., these Christmas cookies were still left over, sitting on the kitchen table.

Here's another shot of the Vaclavske Namesti Christmas market.

Another Christmas tradition in the Czech Republic is that most communities have a Christmas market in the center of town. Even Benesov has at least something that could be described as such, but Prague has many, as it's a city of 1.2 million people. One of them is in Staromestske Namesti, another is in Malostranske Namesti, another is in Namesti Miru, the usual marketplace in Havelske Trziste becomes a Christmas market of sorts, and then there's this one, at the Mustek end of Vaclavske Namesti, which usually has a big Christmas tree, with 2008 being no exception. The building that you can see in the background, on the right, is Palac Koruna, and the street heading back is Na Prikope, which goes to Namesti Republiky, which has yet another Christmas market.

During the Christmas season in the Czech Republic, the traditional meat for dinner isn't turkey, like in the United States, but carp, and traditionally these fish can be bought on the street at stands like these. These fish in this tub were alive, but over on the left, off camera, the fishmonger was clubbing the fish to death with a hammer (an ordinary clawhammer like what you would use for nails) and wrapping them for customers, with the whole area consequently being splattered in blood and fish entrails. Note that this was going on in Spalena, an ordinary street with trams, cars, and trucks running through (although the tub and table were set up on the sidewalk), Christmas crowds walking all over the place, and a Tesco's operating across the street. As I was taking this photo, I wondered if I would be splattered with blood, but I wasn't.

Smazeny Syr, or fried cheese, may be the ultimate Czech junk food, and it's also one of the easiest things to get late at night. This is both because the pubs sell it, and because these kiosks stay open late into the night, at least in Prague. This was another shot that I never though my Contina could get, especially without having 400 ISO film in it, but somehow it took a nice picture, I think.

Actually, it wasn't quite Christmas when I shot this, but the festivities were well underway. The thing that most amazed me when I got these shots back was how good they were, in spite of being taken with a camera that doesn't have a functioning light meter (it had one originally, but there's something wrong with the Contina's light meter now).

I made my Brno trip at the end of 2005, so Christmas was approaching fast, only days away, in fact, so there was the inevitable Christmas market in the town square of Brno.