Christkindlmarket Love: Twenty Years and Counting
A previous version of this essay was first read in 2019 at the St. Charles Writers Group Annual Holiday Reading.
At the end of every year, I eagerly anticipate the Christmas season. Sure, I love watching the kids decorate the tree with special ornaments, driving through neighborhoods to ooh and ahh at sparkly lights, and gathering together with extended family for homemade ravioli at Christmas Eve, but my heart truly belongs to a custom that never existed in my childhood. In fact, it didn’t even originate from the country I call home. My happy-place holiday tradition is the Christkindlmarket.
The Christkindlmarket, as the name implies, is an outdoor market during the Christmas season. It originated in Nuremberg, Germany, in the 1600s. In Deutschland, it is called Weihnachtsmarkt, which translates to Christmas market, or Christkindlmarkt, which means the Christ child market. While Christmas is a Christian holiday celebrating the birth of baby Jesus, the name Christkind actually denotes a beautiful golden-haired fairy who brings children presents on Christmas Eve. She is the spirit celebrated at the advent season festival which consists of small booths selling holiday wares.
I first attended a Weihnachtsmarkt in Aachen, Germany, in 2003—two decades ago! I had never heard of a such a thing before, and I went with some fellow students with no preconceived notions. I was immediately enchanted by the festive atmosphere: in the shadow of a Gothic city hall, a giant tree strung with lights twinkled in the center of the event; the scent of roasted nuts wafted through the town square; patrons milled about with their gloved hands cupped around hot mulled wine called Glühwein, which I of course ordered right away. It came in a boot-shaped souvenir mug, and my German friends informed me that every year the mug had a new, unique design. I inhaled the clove-spiced steam before sipping the tart, red liquid. My insides warmed at once, bolstering me to the chill in the air.
We walked around the market, inspecting the handcrafted ornaments from various vendors. I bought a super long wool scarf and wrapped it several times around my neck. We went back for more Glühwein, maybe ate a Wurst or some freshly baked gingerbread. And that was it—it was simply a market, not unlike the fairs back home, but this American found it completely charming.
A few years later, I was living in Chicago when I heard about a Christkindlmarket in Daley Plaza. This, too, I had never heard of, but I knew I had to go. I went with friends and the guy I was dating, who would a couple years later become my husband. As we approached on foot, coming out of the El red line stop at Lake, I smelled the roasted nuts. Excitement buzzed through me as we pushed through the crowds on the sidewalk, an enormous Christmas tree and the Picasso sculpture looming ahead. I could make out the tops of the little wooden booths, decorated red and white, and visions of Europe danced through my head. We ordered Glühwein, and it came in a boot-shaped mug adorned with the year 2007. It was Germany brought to life in Chicago: fare included Wurst and Schnitzel and pretzels and Spätzle, handmade ornaments dazzled as they spun in the breeze, cuckoo clocks popped open, and a real life Christkind wandered around delighting children with her silver-winged sleeves. I told myself I’d visit every year, and almost without fail, I have.
We’ve returned on numerous occasions to the Chicago Christkindlmarket, one of the oldest and largest German Christmas markets in the US. In previous times there were suburban versions in Oakbrook and Naperville. For the past couple years, we’ve made a new tradition to meet our friends at the Christkindlmarket branch at Wrigley Field, where you can enter onto the baseball field and bask in a winter carnival. It’s a Cubs-fan holiday dream. There’s also a branch near our home in Aurora, Illinois, which is convenient for any last-minute whims.
We own twenty-nine mugs now, each representing the location we went to in a given year. In the post-Marie Kondo, minimalist world we’re living in today, this might sound like a collection gone wild, but these truly do spark joy. Every year at Christmastime we take them out, place them in order on our dining room buffet, and they flank a hand-me-down German Christmas pyramid my husband’s mother gave us. I look at the designs with my daughters, and I say, “This is the one from the year Mom and Dad got married, this is the one from the year you were born …” In 2014, a Kinder Club was introduced complete with its own children’s mug, shaped like a snowman or a penguin. This year, it’s a reindeer. In our assortment, some years are represented by three different mugs, each one with a distinct design or shape.
When the kids were younger, we would ride the Metra train downtown and the kids would participate in the Lantern Parade. They’d follow the Christkind around the market singing English and German carols. The girls were smitten with the fairy and would try to hold her hand for much of it. Once my husband and I sipped Glühwein and the girls boasted whipped-cream mustaches from their hot chocolates, it didn’t matter that the wind bit at our earlobes and tips of our noses. We were making memories.
That, to me, is what the Christkindlmarket now represents. An annual destination, a tradition to share with family. Smells and tastes and sights that etch into our souls and become part of the stories we’ll tell over and over, the ones of good cheer and great joy. I hope the kids will look back fondly on our trips to the Christkindlmarket. Maybe they’ll laugh at Mom’s weird affinity for German festivals. They might even do so over a mug of Glühwein.