Happy German Christmas

I've always loved Christmas, and this year - as every year - I'll be flying back to England to see my family. We'll sit in our cosy living room, with a Christmas tree with lights in the corner, watch great television, eat lots of chocolate and cake, and have the odd tipple or two.

While I adore Christmas at home with my family, I also love the Christmas feeling here in Germany. December in Munich is usually a lot colder than it is in Chelmsford, where I am from, so you can wrap up warm, drink a mulled wine and eat a sausage or Lebkuchen at one of the pretty Christmas markets here. I found these markets really cool when I first came to Germany - it was something different to Christmas in England, and my friends and relatives loved them when they came to visit. "How beautiful," they always used to tell me.

But now they don't have to visit me at all to go to a German Christmas market. Why? Because they have really taken off in Britain! Now, these markets are a regular event in cities like Leeds, Manchester and Lincoln. The biggest is held in Birmingham, where traders from Frankfurt set up stalls from mid-November until 23rd December. In fact, with 2.8 million visitors last year, Birmingham's Christmas Market is almost as big as the one in Frankfurt itself

Leeds Christmas Market (Photo: Toby Skingsley)

Last month I had my first experience of a German Christmas market in England! I was in Leeds, in North England, where there's a "Christkindlmarkt" on the city's Millennium Square. It looked very much the same as the markets I've seen in Germany - it sold the same stuff, offered mulled wine and sausages, and typical German products like German honey, marzipan sweets and Christmas pyramids. And the stalls were run by Germans! It felt like I had entered a part of Germany in the middle of Leeds. The only real difference was that people weren't walking around in heavy winter coats, and there was a disproportionate amount of English people wandering about. Not even Munich has that many British tourists!

It's interesting how things can change so quickly. When I left England eight years ago, Christmas markets were relatively unknown. I wonder what will change in the next eight years.