The Christkindlmarkt under the Festhalle at 2019 Christmas in Cullman.

The City of Cullman estimated that about twice the amount of attendees were at this past weekend’s Christmas parade and tree lighting ceremony from year’s past, but with the return of the Christkindlmarkt scheduled for this Friday, Dec. 9, there are still plenty of activities to enjoy this holiday season.

“It was another successful Christmas event,” Cullman Parks and Recreation and Sports Tourism Director Nathan Anderson told the council Monday evening. “We estimate — based on the drone footage — around 10,000-12,000 (people) at the tree lighting. The parade is a little harder to estimate, but we feel like there were 15,000-plus. Based on last year I’d say that audience was nearly double what it was.”

At the urging of Mayor Woody Jacobs, Anderson offered up a “little teaser” of this upcoming weekend’s recreation of an authentic German marketplace.

As with the audience of the tree lighting ceremony, the Christkindlmarkt will be roughly doubled in size this year. Anderson said that the number of vendors has grown from the 13-14 at last year’s event to 31 that will be set up this year. To accommodate that growth, Anderson said that the city has built an additional 15 wooden huts to house the majority of vendors during the duration of the weekend.

“We’ve challenged our team to knock these huts out and they’ve done a great job. The community’s already seen a little preview. We had 10 of them set up at the parade, but there’s 13 more coming. … It’ll be an impressive sight to see,” Anderson said.

The vendors will be offering a mixture of authentic imported German craft goods as well as well crafted replicas from local vendors. Authentic German food will also be available to enhance the authenticity of the experience. Jacobs described the lengths that have gone into the multi-departmental effort to bring the event to fruition.

“This is not willy-nilly. One thing y’all will figure out is when we do things, we don’t just go into it halfway or half-cocked. A lot of research and study goes into these things. So if you go to Germany and walk down the street, you’re looking at what you’re going to see in a lot of those small towns, or even big towns,” Jacobs said.

The market will be held in the parking lot across from the Cullman Festhalle and will be open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday. In the future, Anderson said that the community can expect the event to eventually become a season-long offering as the city continues to add on to it with each passing year.

“This is going to become something that’s going to be an annual season long event, not just a weekend festival,” Anderson said.

In other business the council:

• Scheduled a public hearing for Jan. 9 at 7 p.m. for the rezoning of Lot 2 of Bark-ley Plumbing Contractors property located on the corner of Bolte Road and Old Hanceville Highway from M-2 Manufacturing to B-2 Business District.

• Approved a special event request from Philip Frappaolo of Sacred Heart Church for the annual Our Lady of Guadalupe parade from Saint Bernard Abbey to Sacred Heart School on December 10.

• Approved a special event request from Rickey Foster Jr. to host a block party on Poplar Drive on Dec. 18 from 5 to 8 p.m. The council informed Foster that due to Poplar Drive being a dead end street that the police would be unable to section off the roadway and that the approval was for what would effectively be a noise permit.

• Approved a special event request from Kari Driver of Cullman Christian School for the annual Good Friday 5k on Friday, April 7, 2023.

• Approved a resolution to award a bid for black and gray pipe to Bear Concrete Products.

• Approved to award a bid for RCP pipe for the CDBG project at Warnke Road to Foley Products Company, Inc.

• Held the first reading of an ordinance to enter into a franchise agreement with the Cullman Electric Cooperative that would allow co-op customers that fall within the city limits to receive Sprout Fiber Internet.