Protesters in Potsdam argue that the Yuletide market has opened too early, focusing on profits, not Christmas. Photo / Thinkstock
The market organisers have turned the 18th-century stuccoed high street in the once royal Prussian city of Potsdam into what they call "a light and fairy-tale fantasy land". Hundreds of imported fir trees line its length and 10,000 fairy lights sway in the breeze on their branches.
The smell of
hot cinnamon and alcohol fills the air as stall holders, some dressed in Father Christmas outfits, ply customers with plastic cups brimming with Glhwein.
Vendors sell smoked meats, gingerbread biscuits, wooden toys and sugar-coated loaves of famous Dresdner Stollen Christmas cake.
But this year, instead of inducing waves of undiluted Christmas cheer, Potsdam's Yuletide market has provoked outrage and calls for a boycott. Protesters claim the market organisers and city government have colluded in putting commercial profit above the spirit of Christmas.
Their crime, the protesters argue, was to open the market 10 days earlier than the traditional Christmas market starting date, which is on or after the first day of Advent.
