Around six weeks before Christmas, many communities are already preparing for the festival. The city of Essen has now resorted to special measures to whitewash their Christmas market during the Advent season. Instead of the usual concrete barriers to prevent attacks by cars or trucks, the administration has now rented ten concrete fir trees.
The "Christmas trees" are 1.80 meters high, green, weigh three tons - and are also to protect against terrorist attacks. The city marketing has the concrete firs set up at the entrance to the Christmas market, which can be reached directly from the main train station. "For many, this is the gateway to the Christmas market, and we wanted to make it more appealing than with simple concrete blocks," said a spokeswoman.
Also snowman made of concrete available
The city marketing has leased the concrete firs at a Saarland company. The manufacturer of the trees, Jürgen Beck, has specialized with his company on terror barriers. According to his own statements, this year he will deliver around 300 concrete blocks for Christmas markets. The idea for the business came Beck - who otherwise operates among other things, a snack at folk festivals - after his two daughters as sellers at a booth on the Christmas market at the Berlin Memorial Church had witnessed the attack in 2016.
Beck said, "Food is the first Christmas market we populate with the concrete fir trees, but we still have a few in store." He had registered the firs - as well as a concrete snowman - with the Patent Office.
Christmas post office opened in Himmelpfort
Peacefully, the Brandenburg Himmelpfort prepares for Advent. In the place has now opened the popular Christmas post office, Santa Claus again moved to the post office - to answer to hundreds of thousands of letters from children from all over the world. So far, around 6000 wish lists have arrived. The longest route so far put back a letter from Australia.
In 2018, a total of about 277,200 children had sent their wishes to Himmelpfort, about 10,300 letters of which came from abroad. More than 20,000 visitors also submitted their letters in person at the daily Christmas Post Office. According to the post office, all letters are answered by Santa Claus and his 20 helpers until Christmas Eve. For a timely response the post office recommends sending the letters before the third Advent.
Wish list consoles, games, dolls
Himmelpfort is the largest of seven post office branches of the German postal service nationwide, where last year a total of almost 589,000 wishlist arrived. While younger children often ask for board games, books, building blocks, dolls, bicycles or spaceships, the older ones dream of gaming consoles, smartphones and tablets in particular.
The other Christmas post offices are located in Himmelsthür in Lower Saxony, Engelskirchen in North Rhine-Westphalia, Himmelpforten in Lower Saxony, Himmelstadt in Bavaria and Nikolausdorf in Lower Saxony and St. Nicholas in Saarland. The address of Santa Claus in Himmelpfort is: To Santa Claus, Christmas Post Office, 16798 Himmelpfort.
The Christmas post office in Himmelpfort has been around since 1984. At that time, two children from Berlin and Saxony sent their wish list to the northern Brandenburg town after a vacation.