The Nutcracker Market

Every year, the Houston Ballet Company sponsors The Nutcracker Market, and hundreds upon hundreds of vendors come from all over the country to set up their displays in a downtown venue. This year's event was held at Reliant Center, right next to the Astrodome.

I wasn't paying attention to the market dates this year, but my husband read about it in Ken Hoffman's column in The Houston Chronicle this week. We always read Hoffman's columns during the week, and he (Hoffman) suggested that the only way to buy the famous "Donne di Domani" tomato sauce was to go during the first hours of the market, and that was this morning. As usual, the Nutcracker Market runs from Thursday through Sunday, and as usual, the tomato sauce cooked up by the women of the Italian-American Organization sells out within the first four to six hours.

All of the money from the sauce goes to charities, and when you buy their bottled product, they give you a list of the charities which will benefit from each ten-dollar jar. My husband has been listening to Ken Hoffman rave about this sauce for nearly all the years we've been reading The Chronicle. With the incentive of tasting "the best sauce of your life," my husband asked me if I wanted to get up at the crack of dawn this morning to be at the doors of the Reliant Center when they opened up today.

Now, I ask you: how could I refuse an offer to drive downtown to a holiday market with a checkbook in my purse? We were up before the day's first light and buying our tickets to the market an hour before the doors were set to open. And even at that, there were hundreds of people ahead of us in the line. I should say "hundreds of women," since most of the shoppers were women. I'd say the ratio of women to men was about 115 to 3.

As soon as we got through the doors, my husband and I split up, planning to "meet at the big Santa at noon." Off he went to get the sauce that would donate dollars to local charites. And off I went to find treasures whose dollars would most likely never see a charitable outcome.

I found some Christmas gifts there, unusual one-of-a-kind jewelry items that I knew wouldn't be found locally. I bought myself some beaded necklaces and earrings, handmade and uniquely designed. Lots of holiday items there, but the prices on those things were high, I thought, and I knew I could duplicate the look with similar items from our local shops, so I took notes on what I thought would look nice in our dining room.

Hundreds of food vendors were there... nuts and candies, cakes and cookies, jams and pies, preserves and soups. Everyone was handing out samples in little cups with tiny spoons. I bought two cakes... jelly-roll-type cakes.... homemade and delicious. They were frozen when I got them, defrosted by the time I got home, but the seller told me to just "pop them on into your freezer and don't fret about it." So that's what I did. They'll come in handy for the holidays. (And as long as I keep them in the freezer, they'll last that long.)

One vendor had small table-top trees made of colored aluminum-- the usual silver, plus mint-green, baby-blue, and a bright pink. Heaven knows I can't resist those table-top trees, so I bought a pink one. Very reasonable at just nine dollars. As I walked around, I found some small pink ornaments-- beaded birds, ballet slippers, and glass balls. All the right size, and they're all now tied to the little pink tree with thin pink ribbons. I already had a pink and green glass tree-topper, so I'll use that for now till I find one in just the right shade of pink. The little pink tree is sitting on the vanity in our Victorian powder room, along with a three-foot tall pink Santa (a yard-sale treasure) that stands on the floor. Perfect for that room!

By the time noon came around, I was all Christmas-ed out, and so was my husband. I could've looked around some more, but the more you look, the more you buy, then you'll have nothing to look for the next time you go. I did, however, buy a wooden nutcracker. I have two already, both of them yard-sale finds, but the one I bought today looks more like The Nutcracker from the ballet production. And being that we'll be seeing that ballet with the girls in a few weeks, I thought it was the perfect thing to bring home.

Speaking of perfect.... my husband handed me a box when we got to the car after leaving the market... a beautiful night-light made from a china teacup and saucer. I always have night-lights on around the house, and I dearly love teacups. I had walked by the vendor who made and sold those lights, but his booth was so packed with women that I couldn't get near enough to look at them all very closely. So I walked away, intending to go back. Of course, once you leave, you either don't remember to go back, or you can't remember where it was. My husband saw the teacup lights and looked at all of them, and picked out a very pretty one with pink and blue roses on it... which is now lighting up a corner of my kitchen counter-top. Don't you just love a man who shops?

And as soon as I get to the supermarket to buy some spaghetti for the famous sauce, my husband will be telling me that he also cooks.