Visit the Awendaw Christmas market December 5-7 and December 12-14
Marianne Caldwell held the first Christkindlmarkt Charleston on her family’s property in 2020, after a trip to Germany where she and her daughter visited 17 markets in 10 days.
Each December, the quiet woods of Awendaw glow with old-world magic. Lantern lights flicker against the pines, fires crackle, and the air is rich with the scent of mulled wine and spiced smoke. Beneath a canopy of Moravian stars, artisans—a blacksmith at his anvil, a ceramicist at her wheel, a woodturner coaxing form from grain—sell their wares. This is Christkindlmarkt Charleston, a celebration held each year at RiverOaks Charleston along the Wando River that has become a cherished Lowcountry tradition. Yet its story began not with crowds or carols, but with a single, hand-carved wooden figurine.
In 1993, an au pair named Conny from Dresden, Germany, arrived in Mount Pleasant. That Christmas, she gave her neighbor, Marianne Caldwell and her family, a Räuchermann—a handcrafted wooden smoker man that exhales incense from a tiny pipe. Each year, her family sent another, until a whole village of whimsical figures filled the Caldwell home. “Our children thought everyone had these in their homes,” Marianne recalls.
The figurines depict the trades of medieval Germany—hunters, peddlers, wood-carvers—and today, the Caldwells’ collection presides over the market itself. The path from mantelpiece to marketplace was a winding one. RiverOaks Charleston, which the couple built as their family home, evolved into a sought-after wedding venue. For Caldwell, faith was always the root: the call to offer blessings generously and steward them well. In time, that conviction led her to reimagine the property in an entirely new way.
In 2018, she journeyed to Germany with her daughter, MerriCameron, visiting 17 holiday markets in 10 days. One in Riedenburg stuck with her. “It was in the woods, along torchlit trails, with fires burning, wooden huts strung with lights, a blacksmith pounding iron, and the smells of food and smoke in the air,” she says. “It felt like stepping into another time.”
Inspired, Caldwell and her daughter returned home and opened the first Christkindlmarkt Charleston with 11 stalls in 2020. Six years later, more than 4,000 visitors are expected over six days and eight market times. Forty vendors will fill the grounds, alongside $35,000 in handcrafts imported from Seiffen, Germany. Guests can sip Glühwein from Dresden mugs and gather by the fire for carols and evening vespers.
Authenticity has grown with each season. After guests noted the absence of a train, a German garden railway soon appeared. A towering tree, a hand-painted city sign, and a nativity scene followed. Now, the market offers imported treasures, as well as a stage for the next generation through its “kinder vendors” program.
At its heart, Christkindlmarkt Charleston is both an enterprise and a ministry. Proceeds support local charities such as the Star Gospel Mission. “It operates like a business because artisans depend on it,” Caldwell says, “but it is also born of love, rooted in faith, and meant to share the true gift of Christmas.”
By the Numbers
Watch a video of Marianne Caldwell inviting guests to her family’s German-inspired Christkindlmarkt.
