Frankfurt

Munyao Mutinda touched by opening of Christmas market.

It is another season of carousal in Frankfurt. Seeing the pomp with which the city’s residents and visitors welcomed the opening of the Christmas market at the Römerberg on Wednesday evening, one would think this was the inaugural event. Yet it is a tradition that dates back centuries.

Before I attended the grand opening of the Christmas market that evening, I had lost faith in Christmas as a religious event. Christmas has been so commercialised that only a thin veneer of religiosity remains. But watching the people of Frankfurt welcome the advent of the festive season with such radiance and glamour, I realised that there indeed are people who still have faith in the Christmas traditions.

That it is largely a commercial event was not lost on anyone – what with sausages hung like jewellery all over the place and mannequins clad in Santa Claus garb at every turning – but I could see nostalgia all over the faces of the folks who flocked to the show. That told me that this event, commercial as it seems, means something to the people. As children rode the carousel, parents waited patiently for the mayor to make her way to the dais and usher in the season of festivity.

The market stalls have a motley of lights, which gives them a spectacular view.

After Wednesday night, my cynicism about Christmas waned. The marketing frenzy was there, no doubt. But as I stood there, listening to the band play from the rooftops and a singer belt out Christmas carols, I realised that Christmas means something to all the people, young and old, who braved the evening chill to witness the auspicious occasion of the lighting of the giant Christmas tree at the Römer.

Their faces lit up when the mayor and her entourage mounted the dais, and the place erupted into applause after her speech and when the lights went on. The older folks sang along to carols as the band played from their perch at the rooftop. It struck me as a tradition deeply rooted in their lives.

It was also an ideal evening out for families and lovers. Drinks flowed freely and food was in plenty. Christmas has begun in earnest in Frankfurt.

In Nairobi, the lighting of the mayor’s Christmas tree is never a ceremony of such magnitude. It is usually a low key ceremony mostly attended by the city council’s top brass and leading business people. And the occasion doubles as fundraiser to get money for gifts for the city’s homeless people on Christmas Day.