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History of German Christmas Markets

• Michele McAloon • Season 4 • Episode 150

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If you love Christmas  history, urban culture, or just the glow of a winter night, this conversation will change how you walk a market lane. Subscribe, share the episode with a friend who loves Christmas markets, and leave a quick review to tell us your favorite Christmas market  whereever you are in the world.

Connect with the Catholic Thing Fear – and Hope – in Europe’s Christmas Markets' from The Catholic Thing.

https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2025/12/13/fear-and-hope-in-europes-christmas-markets/


with Michele Mcaloon https://www.bookclues.com

Cold air, warm lights, and the quiet pull of memory: that’s the spell of a Christmas market. We sit down with Dr. Dirk Spennemann, an Australian cultural heritage expert, to unpack how Europe’s winter fairs grew from pragmatic provisioning into the social spectacles we love today—and why their magic endures even as they change.

We start with the basics: these markets weren’t born holy. They were winter lifelines where townspeople and traveling traders met before roads iced over. Over centuries, they slid toward Advent, picked up nativity scenes and ornaments, and became seasonal stages for community life. Dirk explains how heritage professionals read those stages—what gives a stall, a pyramid, or a steaming cup value, and how that value shifts as societies evolve. From COVID artifacts to AI and digital preservation, we explore why today’s ephemeral signs, screens, and rituals deserve careful saving for tomorrow’s storytellers.

Then we step into the square. Think LED constellations, towering Erzgebirge pyramids, and carefully choreographed footpaths shaped by security and crowd flow. Food now leads the experience: region-specific glühwein and hot cider, beloved sausages and pastries, alongside fairground favorites and global bites. We look at how big-city markets diversify for different audiences while parishes and fire brigades revive neighborhood tradition with weekend pop-ups. Most of all, we talk about nostalgia—the child’s-eye view of lights and sugar, the adult desire to pass that feeling on—and why the setting, from cathedral to cobblestone, holds the key to the market’s spell.

If you love history, urban culture, or just the glow of a winter night, this conversation will change how you walk a market lane. Subscribe, share the episode with a friend who loves Christmas markets, and leave a quick review to tell us your favorite stall and city.

Connect with the Catholic Thing..Michele's article on the meanining and history of Christmas Markets in Germany and France

 Fear – and Hope – in Europe’s Christmas Markets' from The Catholic Thing.

https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2025/12/13/fear-and-hope-in-europes-christmas-markets/


Michele McAloon:

Hello, you're listening to Crossword Cultural Clues Lead to the Truth of the Word, and here we are, almost the fourth Sunday of Advent, which means Christmas is upon us. I had the opportunity to talk to a Christmas market expert. So if you ever wanted to know about the German Christmas markets, I hope you listen to this recording. And also you can find an article I wrote about the Christmas markets in The Catholic Thing, an excellent, excellent intellectual online newspaper. And I was so honored to be able to submit an article on what is happening this year in this year's Christmas markets. And I believe that was last Friday. So you can go on the Catholic thing and find my article. I will also put a link in the show notes. And I hope you guys are having a very merry advent to have a great Christmas and a happy new year. And to find out more about me, go to bookclues.com. Thanks, guys. God bless. Okay, folks, here we are today, and we are talking to a gentleman from Australia. So I'm in Germany talking to someone from Australia. And if you think the time coordination was easy, you got it wrong. Anyway, today we're talking to Dr. Dirk Spinnerman. He is an Australian cultural heritage academic and is an associate professor in cultural heritage management at Charles Sturt University in Albany, New South Wales, Australia. Now, Dr. Spenneman or Dirk, I when I read your biography, your biography is probably one of the most interesting I've read in a long time. You concentrate on cultural history, but you're also a futurist. Tell us a little bit about that work.

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

Look, I'm teaching cultural heritage, which in American terms is historic preservation. But we are looking at various cultural manifestations of what people were doing. That can be in physical artifacts, so objects which you'd usually see in museums, but you know, everyday objects, their archaeological sites, their historical sites. What makes them important is important is what we attribute as value. Ultimately, if you think about it, a stone artifact, an historic stone artifact is useless. You can't eat it, you usually can't use it anymore as a tool. So it's actually a pretty pretty useless piece of stone. But because it is associated with a past culture, with a past period, as evidence of past people's actions, we value it. So we are projecting a value onto an object. Just as much as these values can be, you know, historic values, scientific values, spiritual values. But most of the objects are actually by themselves valueless unless we put a value on it. And so what I'm interested in with this heritage future stuff is trying to work out what may become valuable in the future that we should now be protecting now before it disappears. So it's a continuum from the past to the future. We just happen to be in the present right now. But my present today is the past in 10 years' time. So the actions we're doing to think about COVID. I think it's the best example. Whatever you think about COVID, but it was a massive social disruptor. It changed the way we lived. It changed personal freedoms for a while. It changed all sorts of things, and the economic repercussions are still playing out. When COVID happened, it was clear that COVID or the material culture and things associated with this event would be of museum interest in 10 years' time. When people look back in time and say, well, you know, when COVID happened, this was going on. So you could predict that COVID would be a significant thing to be collected by museums and social historians in 15, 15 years' time. Does it make sense? So therefore, while it happened, we should be collecting. So this is what heritage futures does. You predict what will is likely to develop in the future as important, and you then safeguard this today through documentation or collecting.

Michele McAloon:

Let me ask you a question. I know we're here to talk about Christmas markets, but this is kind of interesting. What about today in the era of electronics, of electrons now, of AI? How what is there something that we should be preserving now? Or do you see a cultural significance for our electronic highways, our electronic knowledge?

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

Funny that you're talking about it because I mean it's almost like a setup, but it's not. We hadn't agreed on discussing this. So for the listeners in, this is not a setup, this is actually a real life conversation, and you're putting the finger on something important, which is, yes, that's what I'm looking at at the moment, which is digital heritage. You know, it's it computers are 50, 60 years old, and we've had them since World War II. But since the last 20, 30 years, it has changed dramatically. We're now talking, you know, we right now we're conversing by a video conferencing system, yeah, which was science fiction in the 1950s. Yeah, Dick Tracy's watches. Now we've got the Apple Watch. So we're dealing with digital heritage, and that is an issue to be looked at. But unlike physical objects, unlike, for example, a Christmas bauble or a pew in a church or church building, digital material is highly intangible. And so therefore, we're dealing with different conservation mechanisms and prospects. And getting your head around this is quite difficult. But it's being done and we're looking at that. And AI is just one of those elements.

Michele McAloon:

Well, truthfully, there's a lot that's probably intangible from the past that has been, whether that was folklore, whether that was that wasn't tactile. So we're not we love to think we're that different, but we're really not. We so looking at Christmas markets, as we're going to talk about here, I mean, there are things that we're probably we have lost because they were intangible in the past and we they were not be able to brought forward. Is that correct?

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

So the heritage is usually divided into the tangible part, so that's stuff you can get your queasy fingers on, and the intangible, the things you can't talk touch. So folklore, language, mythology, spiritual beliefs, technical skills. Yeah, all of that is intangible. So with Christmas markets, you have two aspects to this. One is the function of a market and what's what it served the community at the time and what it served the community today. That's the intangible element. And then you've got the tangible manifestations of those markets, products produced just for the market, think you can only get at a market, a Christmas market and nowhere else, or the infrastructure, so huts and so forth. And a lot of that, of course, is tangible, but it is also perishable over time. So not everything survives because it's not valued, so it's discarded, or it decays. So when we're looking back into older Christmas markets, the tangible material culture becomes less and less, and it is mainly the historic value, the recorded information, and what it meant.

Michele McAloon:

Very interesting.

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

Really interesting. Okay. If I may add to something, so in a current market, for example, if you were to go to a Christmas market throughout Europe or Germany, or you know, they're very common in Germany, but they also exist in other parts of Europe, you will see a lot of lights, you will have smells, you will have the feeling of the cold, you will have music. All of that is intangible. These sensory elements are shaping what a market, how the market is experienced today. That does not mean that the market was experienced the same way 20, 30, 50, 100 years ago. Does that make sense?

Michele McAloon:

Yeah, absolutely. It absolutely does make sense. And actually, I'm about to meet a group of women in about two hours at the mines Christmas market.

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

That's a very nice one. Enjoy it. One of the aspects, of course, with a lot of Christmas markets is not just the event and what happens, but also the setting, the backdrop. Yeah, and most of those markets were in marketplaces. So if you're talking about mines, it's the Gutenbergplatz. It is the whole space around the Minster, the Dome. Yeah. And that means the houses, the looming of this giant, you know, the the Mainz Dome, which is, you know, I think it's romantic built. It's a thousand 1200 year old dome. You know, that kind of dominating landscape will change dramatically if you shift it to the Rhine River. It's almost then like a longitude on a street market along a river promenade. It becomes, it loses a lot of its its so-called magic. It loses its setting.

Michele McAloon:

Let's talk about where did these Christmas markets start with? Because today, I mean, these are almost worldwide events.

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

And they've been exported everywhere, yes. Look, the Christmas markets have nothing to do with Christmas to start with. They historically were simply a seasonal market. So where you needed a market for the populace to be able to acquire goods before it got too cold. So if in in German, in Europe, Central European winter is November and December is cold, but it gets really bitter in in January and February. So these markets were basically similar to the markets around the spring, Easter period, some around the summer period, you had a winter market. They would be held quite commonly on Sundays. So that could be, you know, the first Sunday of Advent, second Sunday of Advent, third Sunday Advent. And a lot of markets in the 16th and 17th century were called after the saint on which day the market fell. So they were not Christmas markets. They were, I think, what uh correct me wrong, St. Andrews Market or whoever the first that. You have to think, liken it possibly like a giant supermarket slash department store, not owned by a company, but basically all different traders would come together and offer things in one location. Until then, normally you would have to go to, you know, someone at a carpenter or someone who made leather belts or so forth in different parts of town. These marketplaces brought them together in one heap, but they also brought people from the outside communities in and offering their goods. So it was basically a giant commercial mercantile event to stock up with material and goods and some food items that you needed before the winter got too bad. And the thing I think which we also have to get ahead around today is the distances. Most traditional markets had a catchment within the day's walk or two days' walk at most. Yeah? So today this is half an hour in a car. Yeah, we don't even think about that. But in the past, it meant if you wanted to have something as a market for the outlying community, they would go to market for a day and do shopping. And then they go back. And in winter the roads became impassable. It was winter, it was cold, it was snowy. If you didn't have to travel, you didn't. Yeah? None of these air-conditioned cars. So the upshot was you dealt with with very big hardships and harsh environments. And this these markets were the last chance to stock up. That's where they started to stock up for goods, similar to other markets. They just happened to be before Christmas.

Michele McAloon:

When did they start getting a character of advent or of Christmas? And I actually want to back up on that. You talked about people coming together. So these really were events, these were gathering social events very early on as beginning markets.

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

Well, all markets were social events. Yeah. Because you were doing all sorts of other business in town while you were there. You were also exchanging information, and keep in mind for smaller communities, and so forth churches, for example, were the social hubs. Yeah. So you would go to church on a Sunday, and the catchment was as far as you could heavily walk, attend service, do something else, and then walk home again. That was basically the catchment of European churches and communities. And during those events, you would then also, you know, meet spouses, meet, you know, all this kind of stuff. In some other communities in Germany, the Christmas markets in the late 17, early 1800s also became an exchange fair for servants. There's some communities where servants would then swap employers during, and employers would seek new servants during that period. But that's an and that's a slightly outlier of an off-event. But basically the social event was not as significant as it is today. Today, Christmas markets are a social experiential event where you meet your friends and chat and take the family and so forth. In the past, they were mercantile predominantly.

Michele McAloon:

Okay. Yeah, they actually are big social events. You know, I'm going to a big social event this morning on with minds, meeting a bunch of Catholic women, friends there. Dresden is often called the earliest Christmas market. So what I think from what you're telling me is that it was a market, but then somehow it became associated with Christmas. And you can see how it a winter market in the period of Advent would be, and Advent being before Christmas, the four weeks before Christmas, the liturgical celebration. When did these markets become associated just with Christmas?

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

As far as I understand, they gradually, with the increased bourgeoisie of the early 18th century, Christmas markets became a from a pure mercantile commercial event to one where you would acquire Christmas presents and other elements of those things. But as far as I'm aware, none of these markets had ever a, while today we always every single Christmas market has an activity scene, they were not in any way associated with Christmas as a religious event. Certainly in the 19th century, so the early 1800s and onwards, a lot of merchants used the Christmas markets to sell goods for the Christmas season rather than general things. So that would be servicing the Christmas present needs of the community, line their own pockets by increasing revenue and increasing sales, essentially. But the throughout history there has not been any real, as far as I can tell, spiritual association of the Christmas market with Christmas as an event. While the various churches have tried to, especially in the last 20, 30 years, have to try and make that connection stronger. There has been a festival, a an event that occurred in the run-up to Christmas and has a Christmas flavor due to the gifts and then the ornaments which were then generated and so forth, but it does not have any spiritual, in itself, spiritual connection, if that makes sense.

Michele McAloon:

Very interesting. Okay, that does make sense. But so Dresden Market, I think it was 1453, I just read.

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

The old is continuing going. Bowtson is also old. There are a few other old ones, but they called it the oldest going one. Yes.

Michele McAloon:

It really wasn't a Christmas market. It was just a market, a winter market. And at some point a chamber of commerce came in and called it a Christmas market and was able to, and then able to kind of market it like that.

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

I wouldn't use the Chamber of Commerce terms, but it became a commercial event. And then in the late 19th century, so 1870s and so forth was when the department stores became big, 1860s onwards, big department stores, they actually, in some major towns, tried to push the Christmas markets out of existence simply because they competed with the Christmas sales. Yeah, the good sales here, the gift sales, so to speak. The Christmas markets were seen as a competition. So in Berlin, for example, the Christmas market was moved from its main location into the side streets and the periphery by the commercial power of the department stores. Which then also shows you if this had had a religious Christianity affiliation, that could have never happened, if that makes sense. You can't kick that out. And then in the late 19th century, early 20th century, before World War I, a lot of Christmas markets wizarded the wine. They basically became commercially irrelevant. They were in some towns, of course, they continued, but in many other towns they just became to disappear.

Michele McAloon:

And it was, they have a little bit of a dark history because it was really, from what I understand, it was really Nazis that kind of brought it back to the forefront to try to celebrate it as a part of German culture. Is that correct?

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

Yes. A lot of Christmas markets like Dresden and others kept on going. Yeah. But in other towns they largely disappeared. And then the in 1934, the Nazis in Berlin decided that the Christmas market would be a great winter festival. And it started off actually in 33 with Nuremberg, where, you know, the mayor of Nuremberg considered the Christmas market as a German tradition and used it to rejuvenate what was deemed to be a truly German tradition in winter. And he created the angel reciting and so forth. And he also generated a rather uniform appearance of the stalls and created the light shows, which we would call them today, very lit streets of the market and so forth. And that then was picked up in by Berlin in 1934 and turned into a massive event, highly organized, choosing who can who can't exhibit. But we also have to think about it. It had the character almost like normal fare, because they were carousels, they were go-kart tracks on wooden tracks, there was a roller coaster. Equivalent, yeah. So stuff which you normally see on a normal fairground also appeared there. So it was turned into a giant fair with a Christmas colouring covering. It grew and grew. And it was, you know, uh keep in mind 1933, there, then 34, the country came out of the depression. But it's still in the depression, but they kept started coming out of it. There is a need for the populace to have something exciting. Winter is miserable in Germany, let's face it. Yeah. So in many respects, and in the 30s, it certainly was even more miserable than today, given the heating and building conditions and so forth. So having this kind of event was something to look forward to, and it was taken up enthusiastically. And other than communities ran with it. The Nazis used it, of course, as an expression of German nationalism and so forth, but it became an experiential event. But ultimately it was a Christmas fair, if you want to call it that way, rather than the market. So there was stuff to be sold. There was heavy gastronomy, which wasn't but which was there in small amounts in the eight 19th century, but with the with the 1930s market incarnation, you had a much greater emphasis on gastronomical offerings. From a mercantile into a heavily social and experiential event in that period. Then we got World War II, right? So everything gets bombed to pieces, it's total misery. Starvation, you had a huge austerity period in 45, 46, 47, 8 with cold winters. And then some communities started the markets again as a mercantile thing where you could buy things and then gradually expand it. And they almost died again until the 70s when sort of a wave of nostalgia washed across Germany, and the Christmas markets were swept up in it. And communities brought them in, and now you've got the Chamber of Commerce and the company, the town councils seeing them as a venue of getting people in and you know activating a space as you would call it today. And then they grew and grow and grow ever since.

Michele McAloon:

Absolutely. It's funny you said the city council, because I'm going to talk to the city councilman, uh, the president of the city council of VSpot in later today about the Christmas market, the Stretschuppen market here in V Spaden.

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

And and there you will see also a very different take because that's highly experiential. That's almost like in a theater performance, a winter theater performance, outdoor performance was now generated. So you've got another version of what Christmas markets have become.

Michele McAloon:

Interesting. What do you think the Christmas market means today? It's, as you said, an experiential, a social event, a bringing people together. I was here during COVID, and I can tell you Germany without the Christmas market was dismal. It was absolutely dismal. Because you said the winters are harsh here in December. Today and the future of Christmas markets. Any predictions?

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

We've had a bit of a look at it. I think if you're trying to project the current trends into the future, what we're seeing in some communities is a diversification of offerings. It's basically being marketed to different constituents. So there will always be a traditional market. But for example, in Frankfurt, you have, oh, in in Hamburg, you've got the LGBQTI plus market. Yeah, you have one which deals, which is focuses more on the experiential, let's go out, have a drink, and enjoy ourselves and be merry part. You've got one which is more traditional with a bit of selling of traditional items and so forth. But if you walk around the Frankfurt market in particular, for example, you will see a lot of goods being sold. They are normal goods. So they're selling brooms and brushes and this kind of stuff. And you think, seriously, but that's what the market was about and is still there. Where do the markets will go? I think the trend to experiential will continue. There seems to be a major trend by communities to build mini attractions in the market. So the Mainz one, for example, has the large pyramid with the Mainz dimension and so forth turning and so forth. Yep. These pyramids started off in Eastern Germany and existed in the 50s and so forth, and they existed on tabletops. And since the wall came down, they became more or less exported to Western German Christmas markets. And now every Christmas market that wants to be known as one tends to have a large two or three or four-story wooden pyramid. Now, some of them just have a glue wine stall on the bottom, and it's a commercial thing. But others, you have the town buying one and putting it in as a feature item, in addition to the nativity scene. And the Christmas tree, of course. The trend was experiential, will continue. We looked at pre- and post-COVID composition of markets. And COVID, of course, was the major hiatus, nothing happened in 2020. Then only half the markets or several German states didn't allow Christmas markets in 21. So you had a granular start. And when you look at the composition of markets of what was offered before and the longer trends, and then after, you see that there's a major shift away from Christmas presents. There are fewer there. There's a reason for that. And then increasingly gastronomy. But the gastronomy itself is no longer German, if you have a look. I mean, it is heavily in a Hungarian, Langos, and international food items have to domin start to dominate the food offerings. But these food offerings are exactly the same as you would have at a summer fair, yeah, a fairground. Right. The only difference is the cladding, the covering of the wagons. Yeah, that's not Christmas and not clowns on it. So these trends will are likely to continue. The other part, and this is important with this trends part, is that a lot of the Christmas present material was sold by small traders, either made or sold by them. And there is a generational change occurring that the younger generation does not want to continue the parents' market business. And so we are seeing stools not offering certain things, and those locations are then being picked up by other traders.

Michele McAloon:

Very interesting. Okay. Another dark part of Christmas markets, unfortunately, now has been the threat of terrorism.

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

Yes.

Michele McAloon:

The I think it was the Berlin market.

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

Berlin and then Magdeburg.

Michele McAloon:

What pressure is that now on these markets?

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

Well, two things happened. I think together with COVID, it changed the way markets are organized. That means there's more security, there's more surveillance and approaches, but also the spacing is bigger. So when I was a kid, it was tight. I I grew up in Mainz and I lived in Frankfurt. So it was a fairly tight spacing. It was, you know, you push between people and so forth. It was a bit intimidating as a little top, little kid. But since COVID, of course, the markets have opened up because there is social distancing is no longer needed, but nonetheless, the spacing tends to be slightly more loose, which also then allows you to congregate for drinks and so forth. So it's a that's a different organization. The the I think the security part is can be oppressive and will diminish attendance, but if it is m well managed in terms of blocking approaches, and that's being done. If you if you know mines, you'll see mines, you will see some interesting barriers if there's the same as the War 23. And you will see the buses have to snake through, you know, because the normal bus routes are disrupted. They're not on the river, so it's a bit different. But the security situations will continue, but I don't think that they will impact on the markets as a future. It is something people get used to, and the organizers are ensuring that the mass attack are less likely to be successful, so to speak. Yeah, you can't run the truck through, you can't run a park car through. Yeah, you might be able to explode a bomb in your backpack, but so that's something you can't stop anywhere. So I think people are more realistic. So I don't think that the security situation will dramatically impact on home markets, the run-in experience. That's my take. Maybe I'm wrong, but my take is it it's not going to be a major hiccup.

Michele McAloon:

Well, you know, it's funny. So in Germany, during the summer gatherings this year, since COVID fests, these markets, these they just keep growing and growing and growing. But what you saw was everywhere, everywhere, there are these uh metal barriers, temporary metal barriers that are now put up in pedestrian zones. There's not a pedestrian zone in Europe anymore that a permanent pedestrian zone that doesn't have a uh uh block that we're blocked. It's absolutely they've taken this seriously. And before I lived in Germany about 30 years ago, you never saw a heavy police presence. You see a heavy, heavy on the street, cops walking, police presence everywhere. And the markets seem more crowded than ever. So I think you're absolutely right. I think people are not afraid of this. They're not backing down from attending these markets. And you know what I have seen now, I mean, there are so many now two-day markets where churches have two-day market. I mean, everybody is getting in on market business, right?

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

I mean, keep in mind that in the very beginning, the markets were a weekend market. Right. But yes. So look, the I think when you look at the bigger trends and I put them together statistically, you can see that from the 2000s onwards, lots of small communities, so what we would call suburbs, yeah, would have a weekend Christmas market for one weekend. And then you have organizations running their own Christmas market. So the church congregation will run one, the fire service will have one, and so forth. They are basically community fundraising small community fundraiser events, which are now labeled Christmas markets. They are not going to attract, they will attract the local diehards who, you know, live there and part of that community. They will go and support the church, they will do that. The bigger markets are those which will attract a cross-section of the town's community, but also there are, of course, tourists who are traveling from market to market to experience multiple markets. And we're talking domestic German tourists plus international ones. Yeah. And there's always these sort of stories of the ten best markets and whatever, and it's some travel writer cooking up whatever they think is, you know, desirable. I've done a bit of analysis, but there's more to come. There's no clear pattern what is except for Dresden and Nuremberg, that's that they tend to be always, and the rest is seems to be the rationale is not always clear. Put it that way. But the the the markets that have a historic setting, say the ambiance in of that space, they will always attract large crowds. Yeah. But then the organizers themselves now feel that they have to add. So I mentioned the pyramids, but the lights are important now as well. Clearly they always have been, yeah. But with the advent of LEDs, which are cheap, uh energy-wise, yeah. If you look at mines, you've got now a star studied from the Heudensäuler, you've got this whole radiating lines of lights, yeah, festoon lights. That is a concept they designed to improve the setting. And underneath that space is actually a social space where people congregate and drink blue wine. When we talk about futures, the alcohol consumption has been fairly high. So a common thing for Germany is to have blue wine, which is, you know, malt wine.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

Right. Uh and there is a whole push to have either the to distinguish themselves from the cheap one to have the vineyard-specific ones and so forth. Right. And in Frankfurt, hot cider, which is a Frankfurt drink. Yeah. And then you get hot beer somewhere. But so the the interesting part is that the most recent generations are becoming more abstinent when it comes to alcohol consumption. Yeah. There is a decline in the current youth in heavy drinking. How that will pan out when they're adults, we don't know. There is a chain connection that as a parent, you remember what the Christmas markets were like when you were a kid and how you experienced them. And I think if if your listeners out there and the Christmas market is not totally crowded, what I invite you to do is to go down on your knees in one of those lines of stalls. And just see how the visual appearance of those lit stalls selling baubles and selling goods or selling, you know, Lebkuchen or whatever they're selling changes depending on your body height. And as a kid, you are you are overwhelmed. As an adult, you know, there is a black sky on top and you see this horizontal. As a kid, you're overwhelmed by those lights sort of coming over you. So the childhood memories are those which are forming your perception of a market. And as an adult, you want to remember those great times, and you want to make sure that your kids have the same experience. No, the markets aren't the same, but nonetheless, you're perpetuating this myth, this imagery of a market.

Michele McAloon:

And you know, and it seems like Christmas, it seems like we want to perpetuate nostalgia more than any other event in our human lives. It's we want to remember the good old days of Christmas. And maybe, you know what? What you just said, I've never thought about before. But when you're little, you see it one way. When you're a big adult woman or big adult man, you see Christmas another way. And but we're always trying to get back to when we're that little, when we see the low.

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

These are the formative experiences, yes. I've done a study which I haven't written up yet, where I've photographed various Christmas markets at different heights. I've set up the camera at the height of a six-year-old, a nine-year-old, a twelve-year-old, a 15-year-old, an adult. The proportion of lights in relation to the height and so forth is totally different. So I really suggest go on your knees for a moment, or down on one knee is enough, and you'll see how different it is. Keep in mind, as a foreigner, you experience the Christmas markets usually as an adult. Yeah, you're coming in, it's a tourist attraction, it's a cool thing to look at. You go, you do Germany in winter, you do some Christmas markets, go skiing or whatever you do. As a kid, you grow up there. This is what you are, and this is you know, it's a miserable month. Christmas, you can't in winter you can't really play outside. It's it's we can, but it's it's not nice. And then you have this, you also as a kid, you usually have to be at home when it gets dark because you know you're not allowed to run around wild when it's dark. And then you go to Christmas markets, which is lit, which has all those smells, the sweets, gebranntemandeln, which is the roasted almonds, yeah, the Lebkurve, which is gingerbread, you've got all of this kind of stuff, you've got the lights, you've got the music, and you're out at night.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

So for kids' experience, this is magic. And as an adult, you remember that. And because the Christmas market isn't all year round, it is confined to this specific time period, it is something you look forward to. Well, this was so cool. My kids now five or four, they gotta see this, right? So out there being dragged out with the little little beanies and it's cold and they're shivering, and then they're exposed to whatever the adult thinks was market and shapes the next generation's opinion.

Michele McAloon:

Yeah. Wow, I tell you, it's so important to talk to people. It's so important to talk to different people, to uh get uh to understand different people's experiences. I've been going in and out of Christmas markets for 30 years, never even thought about that. So that is really, that's really a great, interesting, very this conversation has been fascinating. Dr. Spinnman, I really appreciate your time taking out to talk to us about that. I think what you your work you do is absolutely fascinating. This spring I had a woman on named Lizzie Wade that looks at archaeological finds and kind of is doing a little bit of the same thing of what you're doing, of trying to figure out what what has happened in the past, what has happened in the future through archaeological pieces. So it it it is, it's our humanity. That's that's what it is.

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

So I may make a comment to the listeners, but to the listeners a comment is if you go to Christmas markets and you have the opportunity to go to Christmas markets in different regions, one of the common things current German Christmas markets have is local regional foods. So if you have a chance, talk to a local and say what is the local thing to eat or to drink. They will tell you glue wine, most likely, unless you're in Frankfurt, of course, then glue wine is an abomination and you will drink hot cider. But elsewhere, they will tell you this kind of sausage, this kind of bakery goods, and so forth. And that's possibly one of the few events where you still have this highly localized culinary tradition. Because as Germany, of course, since post-World War II has mur you know become an amalgam of different displaced people and so forth. And then after the war came down, things mixed again, it has become a melange. And so you don't have that much local tradition. Culinary traditions, they exist, but they don't come to the fore. At Christmas markets, at least in some areas, they do come to the fore. So it's worthwhile to ask the locals and say, tell us, you know, what is the the the thing to eat? What is the thing to drink here? And the ask two or three people, and you quite very quickly get a common common consensus and telling you, well, that's what you have to have, you know, and there's a horse sausage over there, and there's this. I I suggest that's worth doing because that is the one real local element that uh still pervades the market.

Michele McAloon:

And here in this area it's the wine. So you have the different wineries that come and the different yeah, they really do. Well, Dr. Spend, thank you so so much. Really appreciate your time. And I want to wish you a frolic fine.

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

I still can speak German.

Michele McAloon:

All right, all right. And you know what, my German's terrible. Anyway, okay. All right, thank you very much.

Dirk H.R. Spennemann:

You watch it.