I had never heard of a Christmas market before I was in Nantes studying during the month of December. At that time, two years ago, I was very surprised to see rows upon rows of little wooden cabins materialize in two of Nantes's biggest squares and fill with toys, jewelry, colored lamps and scarves, dried fruit, mulled wine, sausage, and pretzels. But upon returning to Europe, I see that such a public collection of holiday festivity is the standard approach to winter: during my travels in the end of December I witnessed Christmas markets (or "les marchés de noël") in Toulouse, Luxembourg, Wiesbaden (in Germany), and London. Though they shared enough characteristics to safely huddle together in the same category of event, I'm glad to have seen so many because they are by no means the same.
Toulouse's market was only one step in a whole slew of Christmas festivities. In addition to the enormous light display over the hut village, the passage through the capitol building (passage Henri IV) had transformed into a carnival complete with a display of a gypsy camp and posters for attractions such as a magician professor who can make demons appear. On the other side of the passage a temporary indoor theatre had been set up where a fairy-tale spectacle took place every hour all afternoon the two Saturdays before Christmas. I missed the spectacle, unfortunately, but I did get a look at two displays on either side of the theatre, both tacky yet enchanting. The first one showed water and earth fairies frozen in various positions upon their branches. The second showed miniature geese arranged in human attitudes in winter scenes, like a camp amid a snowy forest and an ice cavern with little glittering icicles. I also caught a performance of three of La Fontaine's fables in shadow puppets with musical accompaniment. Pictures with Santa, personalized hats made out of junk, face painting, and random sightings of brass musicians on bicycles were also available.
I had the most time to enjoy the Toulouse market, so there I got to experience a whole range of events. But it was by no means a paltry thing to walk through the Christmas market in Luxembourg. Since the tradition originates in the northeastern region of France, Alsace, even the Toulouse market had a northern, mountainous theme; in Luxembourg, which is much closer geographically to Alsace, that theme resonates. In the relatively small market there, I ate authentic sausages (mettwurst and white grillwurscht) and authentic glühwein (warm mulled wine) in a covered area filled with high tables and people talking from underneath their bundles of scarves and hats. I was especially impressed by the stage near the covered area from which a choir and a performer with a guitar took turns serenading the crowd.
In Wiesbaden, Germany, the lights were exceptionally well done. Unlike Toulouse's sheets of lights draped down the front of city hall and over the center of the market like a tunnel, the lights in Wiesbaden were shaped like giant flowers or bunches of leaves sheltering the market stalls. Here, too, there was a stage where schoolchildren sang, and here I enjoyed more glühwein (you can't have too much around Christmas) with a meal of kartoffelpuffer, a delicious potato pancake almost exactly like latkes, and apple sauce. The gorgeous red neo-gothic church of Saint Bonifatius just next to the market square contrasted pleasantly with the blue-roofed retail huts.
Given the Christmas market's continental origin, I was surprised to see that London, too, puts on a market for Christmas. The tradition lost some of its charm over the Channel, I fear: London's market struck me as commercial and touristy. Perhaps that effect is due to the sheer size of the city. In any case, even though the market in Hyde Park was larger than those in Luxembourg or Wiesbaden, it was packed. Its wooden huts were decorated with evergreen garlands and little silver reindeer, but the effect was not pleasant enough to make up for the tight rows of people. Since I had already tried sausage and mulled wine in the heart of sausage country, I did not try the sausage offered there. I did try a different sort of local specialty, however: gummy beer. I didn't believe it at first -- I thought the glass-shaped candy must be soda flavored - but no, it clearly said BEER printed on the candy itself. Sadly, they had not figured out how to make a gummy candy taste like delicious British ale, and I could not even swallow it. I was relieved to get out.
By the time I got back to Toulouse, the Christmas market had been taken down and the lights extinguished. It was back to normal life -- the next magic to illuminate the city will be the coming of spring.
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