Frankly ... integrated  Ahlan wa sahlan, German winter! Welcome!

Some people love the cold season. So does columnist Sineb El Masrar. She warmly welcomes the German wintertime, which carries her back to her childhood in Germany – and her Moroccan roots.
 

Some people say: Who needs winter. It’s dark, cold and uneventful. But I beg to differ. To me, the advent of winter is a cosy, contemplative time that heralds the holidays that lie ahead. And it’s full of memories. My associations with winter go back to my childhood, when winter was the harbinger of Christmas. Although Christmas is not a holy day for me as a Muslim, this festive season stirs up excitement among people of other faiths, too, in this country and around the globe.

I remember how, when I was a child, when winter came to Germany, the streets of its cities and small towns alike were festively adorned, their building fronts, shop windows and trees festooned with fairy lights and sparkling moons, stars and Christmas bells. And each shop seemed to have its very own bearded man – whether real or a well-padded life-size doll by the name of Santa Claus. As kids we learned there was actually only one Santa, but he apparently had loads of bearded brothers, cousins and uncles in his extended family.

I remember those smells to this day. Cinnamon, cardamom and star aniseed – all those spices we Moroccans use in our kitchens and bakeries all year round. Long before health food stores and delicatessens became the sole – and very pricy – purveyors of such exotic ingredients, we’d buy up spices by the kilo to bring home to Germany from our summer holidays in Morocco. They had to last for a whole year till the next summer, when we’d be back at the bazaar handing the spice vendors our shopping lists again. But these days, now that you can get whatever spices your heart desires at your local discounter, health food shop or drugstore, nothing’s exotic in Germany anymore.

Winter is also the season of Christmas markets. I used to love strolling through those markets in my youth, delighting in the handicrafts, the smells of baked and fried foods in the air, the scent of cinnamon blending with the sweet smell of the candied almonds that I was happily munching on. I loved that time of year, those places and moments in 1980s and ’90s provincial Germany, for they reminded me of the Orient, the part of my roots that’s seldom associated with Germany and the West. Nothing in the Occident evokes the Orient more vividly than the customs and aromas of Christmas. The Christmas market is, in a word, Germany’s bazaar. Amid the constant stream of music, some vendors hawk their wares every bit as loudly and importunately as at any bazaar in Tunisia, Turkey or Egypt. The only ones who can top that may be the market criers at fish markets in northern Germany.

So I look forward to freezing cold days when my fingers feel like they’re about to fall off: then I find my salvation in a cup of hot aromatic Christmas punch that warms my hand and heart as it runs down my throat and gives me a warm feeling all over. So ahlan wa sahlan, German winter! Welcome!