Wrong Turn: Frankfurt

Harnessing the Power of Christmas & the Decline of Elven Responsibility.

As one of the unappreciated co-fathers of modern Christmas, Germany are masters at kindling the holiday spirit. By night, the Frankfurt winter markets are as Christmassy as alcohol-bared familial tension.

You, a pelted Grinch, might think there’s some pine-shaped cookie-cutter formula for Christmassiness: cold, food, lights, family, dark, booze. However, every quite-chilly, European city slaps together a few garden sheds and claims ‘Christmas Market’ status. Normally, the hollow result ends up resembling an underutilised allotment.

In Frankfurt’s Weihnachtsmarkt, the margins of every shape in sight are - and I wouldn’t festoon a sentence with this word lightly, but - festooned with the comforting glare of the holiday season. Dazzled toddlers riding 10-foot-high on their hero’s shoulders, secure in the wonder that Santa Claus lives. Industrious part-time elves coiling up batter into spirals of deep-fried delight. Top-heavy barkeeps mulling boozes which the Scroogian scientific establishment always ridiculed as unmullable.

Granted, I did just reel off all those elements for out-of-the-box festive cheer. But, I swear on Santa’s life - which, as of the 24th Dec, is in my twitchy, hot-blooded hands - the Frankfurt tourist board has truly captured and monetised Christmas. Well, I say ‘truly’, in the city’s defence, they haven’t forcibly recruited its roly-poly figurehead into a homegrown OnlyFans sexploitation cell.

In the plain offensive light of hungover-day, the spell was broken.

Turns out, the final brick of Frankfurt’s historic centre, “Old Town”, was laid in 2018 (take another look at that photo). Apparently, the old “Old Town” was levelled in some catastrophic incident last century, which our tour guide kept hurrying past in breezy generalities. Referencing ‘A bombing’, without any mention of the epoch-splitting event where Germany, once and for all, stopped being known as ‘The Christmas guys’. I’m not saying our tour guide was a holocaust-denier, but he wasn’t much of holocaust-acknowleder either. Totally with you dude, the systematic genocide of millions is just not very festive, is it?

That explains why the main square felt like the flimsy filmset of a crowdfunded Bavarian epic. Or an inexplicably German-themed quadrant of Disneyland. Without the distracting warmth of the lights and lagers, the pre-fab heritage didn’t cut the mustard.

The markets by day were a bit of a soggy schnitzel. There’s nothing sadder than the disgruntlement of an off-duty elf. The streets were flooded with overworked helpers, stressing towards their day-shift, fag-in-mouth. Dimming the holiday spirit of passing children with every ignored point. Merry Christmas.

There’s no excuse. As a former member of Santa’s temporary workforce, I was keenly aware of my Elven responsibility - even on acid, in fact, especially on acid, in fact, exclusively on acid. The weight of that precious burden collapsed my brain in on itself. I chose breaking my mind, over breaking a child’s heart.

This ends now. My flagship policy as the first Elvish Ministerpräsident will be:

“Mandatory Participation in the Consumption of Psychoactive Substances by the Full Elven Workforce for the Sole Purpose of Preserving, Protecting, and Perpetuating the Wonderment of the Youth of Germany”

Where were we - the morning was a mixture of stilted, business-first breakfasts between frequent flyers, ageing ravers recovering from their annual last stand; and red-nosed Mediterranean tourists convulsing at menu boards.

In fairness, the local dish was the aptly-named green sauce - “a family of cold, uncooked sauces.” The best wurst is still the best worst food. The runner-up tourist hotspot was Frankfurt’s matter-of-fact answer to the Empire State Building, the “Main tower,” which lived up to its title. The remainder of the city was a dreary exercise in urban aptness.

If you stripped away the markets, which they do on December 22nd, Frankfurt is about as captivating as the fiscal policy determined there. But for those few nights, I felt as Christmassy as I had only ever felt around my own mother’s dinner table.

Now like my post or Santa gets it.

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