If your idea of festive shopping leans more candles-and-corsets than candy canes, Vancouver has an event worth pencilling in. A Very Victorian Christmas Market returns to the Roedde House Museum in the city's West End on Saturday, December 5 and Sunday, December 6, running 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, with entry at just $5 at the door — cash or card.
The setting is half the appeal. The Roedde House is a restored 1893 Victorian home, built for Gustav Roedde, Vancouver's first bookbinder, and his wife Matilda, who arrived in the city in 1888. Gustav made his name marbling paper, and the house itself was designed by Francis Rattenbury, the architect better known for grand civic landmarks. Walking through it in December, stalls in every parlour, gets you about as close to a 19th-century Christmas as the West End allows.
The vendor list is decidedly on the gothic side of the season. Expect tarot readings from Empathic Tarot, gothic candles from Graveyard Collection, corsets from Lace Embrace, and antiques from Salem's Attic and She Wolf. There's witchy and queer art from Lo Kyle Art Studios, upcycled porcelain jewellery from Seductive Perils, handmade and upcycled clothing from Soft Coffin, and art and stationery from The Grimrose Rabbit and Thorain Art & Illustration. Local potters from the West End Community Centre round things out. In short: a genuinely odd gift haul, not another row of mulled-wine stalls.
If the market dates don't work, the museum has more on this month — a holiday Concert in the Parlour on Friday, December 4, and caroling on Sunday, December 13.
For travellers, this is a good excuse to see a piece of Vancouver history most visitors walk past. The Roedde House sits in a residential pocket of the West End, a short stroll from English Bay and Denman Street, so you can pair the market with a beach walk and lunch nearby. At $5 entry it's one of the cheapest cultural tickets in the city, and the two-day format means you can slot it into a weekend easily. Come for the antiques and tarot, stay for the house itself — the marbled paper connection makes it a fitting place to buy stationery.
