Weihnachtsmarkt

Towns all over Germany know exactly how to drive away the bleakness of interminably gray late-autumn skies: they open festive Christmas markets decorated with thousands of teeny tiny little lights, where you can find Gluehwein and gifts to warm your body and soul against the chill.

Situated primarily around the Rathaus plaza, Freiburg's renowned Weihnachtsmarkt commenced on Monday and runs until December 23. And believe it or not, the clouds parted this week, and the sun is shining upon Baden-Wuerttemberg once more.

I'm usually pretty cynical about capitalism-centered longer-than-advent gearings up for Christmas, but I'm finding the market a pretty and fun place to nosh and gawk. Most of the stalls match one another in size and color, their dark brown stained wood exteriors adorned with stapled-on forest green pine branches. The lights--mostly small white bulbs, but also large, pointed German-Moravian Herrnhuter stars--do a lot to generate cheer after the sun sets (well before 17:00 these days). The goods sold are predominantly (though by no means exclusively) handmade crafts, including functional and decorative pottery, fancy feather-quill pens, brightly colored felted wools and textiles, elaborate cookie press molds, natural soaps, and baubles, toys, and kitchen items made from gorgeous woods. Some items are made on site: hand-dipped beeswax candles, blown glass ornaments, elegant little lathe-turned wooden tops. The food is affordable, and in addition to the satisfaction provided by the mere act of eating, there's also delight to be had watching a vendor make you your very own warm-applesauce-and-cinnamon-sugar-filled crepe hot off the griddle.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about the market is that it turns Germany's natural order topsy turvy. So powerful is the urge to celebrate, so strong are the forces of Christmas commerce, that the impossible becomes possible: the market is not only open daily until 20:30, it's also open on SUNDAYS.

Alongside the market, the downtown Christmas scene has been providing some mild local dramas. Controversies have included how late into 2010 the outdoor ice-skating rink in Karlsplatz will remain open, given the unseasonably warm weather (the compromise: mid-January); and how it could possibly be that merchants on Kaiser-Joseph-Strasse--the snazziest shopping street in all of Freiburg--are too cheap and disorganized to hang decorations on Kajo Street, denying shoppers a treasured seasonal joy for the first time in 55 years (tsk!), while smaller stores in li'l old Herdern have found funds to hang red Herrnhuter stars over a good stretch of Habsburgerstrasse. Public shaming in the media is extremely effective in Germany: the Kajo merchants are putting lights up this weekend.