Where to go in December, for markets, snow or an honest escape from both

December in Britain arrives already dressed for the occasion, which is either exactly what you want from a holiday or precisely what you want to get away from. Both instincts are reasonable, and both are well served by the sort of short-notice trips that suit a month everyone treats as already spoken for. The choice, roughly, is between doing Christmas somewhere that does it properly, or not doing it at all.

Hamburg, by ship and by market

Germany's Christmas markets are older and more established than the versions that have spread to most British high streets, some tracing back to the late medieval period, and Hamburg's, spread across the city's historic squares, is one of the larger and better organised. A short cruise from Southampton reaches it directly, with the crossing itself part of the appeal: a couple of days at sea, in December, watching the North Sea do what it does in winter, before waking up somewhere that smells of spiced wine and roasting chestnuts. It is a compact trip, well suited to people who want the atmosphere without committing a week to it.

Prague, dressed for the season

Prague does Christmas with genuine conviction: the Old Town Square fills with a market and a large tree, the astronomical clock on the Old Town Hall draws its usual crowd on the hour, and the whole city, built largely of stone rather than the timber that burns down so much of old Europe, has kept enough of its medieval fabric intact that the season does not feel bolted on. Sitting on the Vltava, with Prague Castle above it on the hill and the Charles Bridge crossing below, it photographs even better under snow than it does in the height of summer, and a short break built around the market season needs little more than a few days to feel complete.

The Caribbean, for the other instinct

Not everyone wants December to feel like December. A fly-cruise out of Barbados over Christmas and the new year takes the opposite approach entirely, flying out to warmth and spending the festive period itself moving between islands: Grenada and St Lucia, the Dutch islands of Curaçao and Bonaire off the Venezuelan coast, and the French islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, with Christmas Day and New Year's Eve spent at sea or in port rather than at a familiar table. It will not suit everyone, and it is worth being honest that a Caribbean Christmas is a genuinely different occasion from a British one, with its own rhythms rather than a transplanted version of home.

Grenada, the southernmost of the three, is known as the Spice Island for its nutmeg and cocoa plantations, and St Lucia's twin volcanic peaks, the Pitons, rise almost straight out of the sea on its south-western coast. Curaçao and Bonaire, low, dry and ringed with reef, could hardly look less like the lush volcanic islands further north, and the contrast between the two halves of the itinerary is part of what makes a fortnight of island-hopping more interesting than a single resort stay would be.

What both approaches have in common

Neither option is a compromise, and it is worth resisting the idea that one is somehow the more serious choice. A short winter cruise to a German Christmas market asks little of you beyond a coat and a willingness to be cold on purpose; a fortnight in the Caribbean over Christmas asks you to accept that the day itself will not look or feel like the one you grew up with, and that this might be the point rather than the problem. Both are honest about what they are selling, which is more than can be said for December generally.

Choosing your December

If a market, a mug of something warm and a reason to wear a proper coat sound like Christmas to you, Hamburg or Prague will deliver it without demanding much of your annual leave. If what you actually want is for December to feel like an ordinary warm month with better food, a Caribbean Christmas trades the markets for a deck chair and asks nothing more of you than to enjoy it.