Munich. You probably know this, but be prepared for really blah weather. We were there at the same time this year, and every day was sort of dark and cloudy and the temperature never moved from just above freezing (except the night when we woke up to a sheet of ice the next morning.)

We went to Nuremburg, and perhaps our expectations were very high, but found it not the best use of an day of our vacation. The market is indeed huge, but we saw little that wasn't also right in Munich. If you do go, spring for tickets on the ICE. We did the Bavarian pass (which doesn't allow use of the ICE) and there aren't that many fast regional trains. Going was OK, but coming back to Munich we were ready to return right when there was a huge gap in the schedule and opted for a train that seemed to stop at every cow between Nuremberg and Munich. It would have been faster to wait the 2 hours for the next express.

Following advice read somewhere (probably on this board!) we also spent a day taking the train to Garmish-Partenkirchen and had a fabulous day. The scenery from the train is great almost immediately after you leave Munich. In G-P, everything was walkable from the train station, the main pedestrian street was lined with cute shops, the Christmas Market although very small had great quality at much lower prices than in the big cities and we bought most of our stuff there. Had a really nice lunch, the air was clear (for once) and crisp that day and the town is surrounded by mountains. Really laid back and worth the trip. We did the train very inexpensively using the Bavarian day pass.

Skip the Hofbrauhaus, which will be full of Chinese tourists, and instead go to Augustiner.