Wooden huts are glittering with golden fairy lights as groups of friends gather in woolly hats, warming their hands on mugs of mulled wine.
Signs written in German are dotted about - Glühwein (mulled wine), Bratwurst (grilled sausage), Kinderpunsch (non-alcoholic punch).
This isn't Germany - it's Birmingham's Frankfurt Christmas Market. Organisers say it's the largest authentic German Christmas market outside the country and Austria.
Christmas markets are thought to have originated in Germany in the 14th Century, and its markets have long been admired since. But how close are the ones in the UK to that supposed traditional, real thing?
BBC News visited some to find out - and perhaps provide some inspiration for your next festive visit.
A taste of Germany... in Birmingham?
On a cold Thursday afternoon in Birmingham, we have just met Nina Adler and Till Rampe, 27-year-old German students studying for PhDs in the UK's second city.
As we walk around the Christmas market, which snakes through streets close to Birmingham New Street railway station, they're reminded of home.
They point to the wooden huts, food and drink, and the handicrafts as positive signs this is close to the traditional ideal. The chocolate-coated marshmallows at one stall impress Till, who is from a town near Frankfurt. I could swear they are from my hometown, he says.
But other aspects of Birmingham's market are further removed from the German way - like the beer. People are just connecting Germany with beer, Nina, from Berlin, says. In Germany, usually, you drink mulled wine. This is very typical.
And as for the pop tunes blaring out of the speakers in Birmingham - like The Power of Love - you probably wouldn't hear that at markets in Germany - rather it would be Christmas music and carols, she says.
Our visit to a Christmas market in Berlin
While many Christmas markets in the UK have been running for a couple of weeks now, in Germany they have only just opened, as is tradition, on 24 November.
Some 800 miles away from Birmingham, the city of Berlin is home to more than 70 different Christmas markets. In Charlottenburg Palace in the west of the German capital, the market is bustling and filled with people of all ages when we visit on a Tuesday night.
The smell of roasted almonds, caramelised apples, chocolate-coated fruit, mulled wine and grilled sausages fills the air, as Christmas carols are performed live on a stage and children enjoy a small, sparkling Ferris wheel.
Other Christmas markets in the UK
Back in the UK, while Birmingham can boast about its market's authenticity, what of other locations in the UK?
Christmas markets have become a staple of many UK cities - Manchester, Leeds, Bath, Edinburgh, and Newcastle among them. Smaller markets, typically in historic settings, are also proving popular on TikTok, sometimes incredibly so. Since 2023, Lincoln Christmas market has been closed because of overcrowding concerns.
When the BBC visited the market in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, earlier this week, we saw an open mic night and stalls offering a range of foods. There were German foods, but far fewer than in Birmingham.
