Pre-Christmas Gatherings

Christmas Markets

It started with the 3 day Market in the Danube Swabian Club in Scarborough (read about it in Dick’s report) and continued with the Kitchener Christkindl Market.

This year there was a different feel to the event. The first thing we noticed was that there were a lot of vendors missing and most of the ones there could sometimes not easily be found. It is a strange thing, but in over 10 years one becomes used to seeing specific vendors for very specific items.

Klaus Wehrenberg, the organ grinder

While strolling is great, sometimes we just want to purposefully get in, buy what we need and walk through and out. Not all of us have time to search. Yet this time for many an item the search was futile. All food counters inside were not there anymore. So anyone looking for smoked sausages and specialties was out of luck. I later heard that one was hidden upstairs.

Children, railroads, toys and trains

I understand there were about 20 less vendors this year, and all that change came about, so we heard, because a so-called concerned citizen felt last year that there were too many people for the size of the venue.

Christmas gifts inside
Booths outside...

Bureaucracy took hold of the event and now everything is regulated to the ninth degree. We wonder if it is not time to take this event back to the community, like the Danube Swabians are doing. They have a Christmas Fair in their club. There are clubs big enough for that to happen in Kitchener too. Especially the Concordia Club could accommodate such a venue if they address it the way they deal with Oktoberfest. That is another event that was born in the German Community and rules and regulations have strangulated the participants. If it were not for the good will of hordes of volunteers such folk fests would never come off. Instead of making it more difficult the city leadership should strive to help the situation and not hinder it.

...and skating on the ice

It will be interesting to see what will become of this award winning affair, so lovingly created by Toni Bergmeier and his helpers.

The Concordia Choirs under Dr. Alfred Kunz
A female solo	Male solos
...and a children's choir under Angelika Werner

Regardless of any disappointments, we found the entertainment to be seasonal and heartwarming. Especially the three choirs with Concordia to their name under the roof of a tent drew a big crowd. Dr. Alfred Kunz conducted the Concordia Choirs and Angelika Werner conducted the German Language School Concordia Children Choir. I was a joy to hear all their voices, male, female, solos, children’s. You just had to look at the faces of the audience to know how much they were appreciated.

...and there is the audience

At the same time that Kitchener had its Christmas Market Toronto touted a first original Christmas Market. This of course is not true. “It is just marketing” says Matthew Rosenblatt, one of the chief organizers of the event. We have had original German Christmas markets a few years back. They too disappeared because the whole apparatus was too complicated and expensive. This newest version is taking place in the Distillery District, an area well suited to such an event and we can only hope that it will become successful and not also die a slow death of bureaucracy.

Our Dr. Altermann visited the market and you can read his report to find out more.

There are more seasonal events to come and I truly hope that you will enjoy as many as you can.

Have a very merry Christmas one and all!

Sybille Forster-Rentmeister