The German Christmas Market

My cousin’s email said they were coming to Europe. Her professional photographer husband was shooting Christmas markets in Austrian, Czech and German cities. Was there even a remote chance we might meet up? To me it was only when and where. Checking the airlines and train schedules, led to Frankfort being the chosen place.

I stumbled on my first German Christmas Market as new bride. I had arrived in Stuttgart only the month before. My mother, over-protected me, not even allowing me to venture into Boston with people, much less alone, and I now I was wandering around a foreign city unable to speak the language.

In the square in front of Breuniger’s Department store I meandered into a fairyland of tiny chalets rich with the smells of bratwurst and glug wine. Tiny Christmas decorations, hand made gifts abounded, not that I could afford any of them. In fact that year, I used my safety pin collection along with my bright large hair rollers to fashion the only Christmas tree would have.
I’ve spent many Christmases with these cousins in Augsburg, Boston and Garmish where the living room window looked over the Olympic ski slope and a walk up the mountain was a rule for apfel strudel as we waited for the turkey to cook.

We wandered to Romer Platz where Goethe, if he were alive today, might recognize the buildings (even if they have been reconstructed since they were destroyed during WWII, because the town fathers still had the original plans).

All the old familiar smells of bratwurst and glug wine were there along with popcorn and the caramelly scent of cotton candy, but tacos were also on the menu, certainly a new item. A moose head adorned one chalet roof. His mouth moved as he sang in German Have a holly jolly Christmas.

The delicate decorations, the gingerbread hearts, music, carousels all brought memories. Since this was my cousins’ seventh market in two weeks, they were almost marketed out, but as they said, each market has its own ambience.

At one point, chilled, we broke for lunch, a mushroom soup and hot apfelwine, more conversation sitting on benches along long wooden tables. The restaurant could have been a scene from any movie but rather it was a walk down memory lane as well as creating new memories.