Could there be any place more joyous than a Christmas market. I'm not talking about the flimsy thing they throw up on Southbank each year, but a proper, weighty German Christmas market where gluhwien, cheese, sauerkraut and sweets are produced and consumed on industrial, yet convivial, scales. Where raclette and scented candles are sold side by side with devastating impact on the olfactory neurons. Where ice skating becomes a spectator sport for the amateur acrobatics and the gravitationally challenged (I would be the one hanging onto the fibreglass penguin safety slide along with the three year olds). And where no-one even pretends to be looking at the nativity scene. Like architecture in Berlin (a melange of fascist, stalinist and hipster), any of its 60 Christmas markets offers the kitsch to the sublime.
Who then can help but forgive Germany its trashy house taste in music, as long as it keeps churning out brie and black truffle cream cheese, at least a dozen versions of sweet and savoury strudel, and plum liqueur. All of which are best consumed in an atmosphere of roasting potatoes accentuated by fairy lights, and overseen by several angels on stilts who keep the real world at bay for at least a few hours.
Happy pagan festivities.
