A toast to the Christkindli and his Markt
If there’s one thing the German-speaking world does right, it’s Christmas time. Christmas markets pop up everywhere selling lots of things you don’t need. Glühwein (hot, spiced wine) becomes available on every street corner, as do roasted chestnuts, to warm you on cold days. Twinkling little lights hang above all the shopping streets (OK, the Swiss seem to have gotten this part slightly wrong – but I’ll address this in a later post). Zimtsterne, Magenbrot, and other Christmas delicacies show up at all the stores.
Another nice thing about the Christmas season in this part of the world is that there aren’t any of those annoying right-wing bible-beaters complaining about how Christmas has become too commercial, or how we’ve all forgotten its “true meaning.” In Zurich, the baby Jesus is too busy running the indoor market at the train station to care about whether you’re celebrating his birthday in the correct fashion.
Today we strolled through the newly-opened Christmas markets around town with our visiting friends from Geneva (who, amazingly, had never been to a Christmas market before). We ate Chäs-Chüechli (unpronounceable Swiss cheese pie) and drank Glühwein while browsing through the little market stalls. I think about half of the inhabitants of Zurich were doing the same thing. The only thing missing was the snow.
