Slightly more user-friendly and crafts? - Atmosphere in Montpellier at Christmas
Christmas in Montpellier. The Christmas market on the Comedy and the Esplanade, the winter is not over yet. But today, no shops are open. No? - If one shop is open ... and save the environment for those who have come to drink their glass of mulled wine festivals. And not only wine and hot chocolate to be found to stand pleasantly interrupts the monotony of a market for Christmas shopping white, empty, closed. Those who have the time and inclination to also find a bit of culture. They learn, for example, the difference between chocolate and hot chocolate Viennese, they understand, why the Viennese chocolate was renamed Liege - it was the first world war, when we still loved the chocolate Viennese but does dared not utter a name referring to Germany - and a child achieves a kind and gentle way that throwing his chewing gum on the floor is perhaps not the best solution ...
Nobody knows what the other traders this Christmas day. And nobody dares to criticize them: "They too have families." But the disappointment is feeling well. "A Christmas market closed Christmas, "jokes a young man, and another adds:" Because the Santa is unionized. "
However, the Christmas market is not lacking too, this day of celebration." We saw everything, "said a lady with two young children." Every time we crossed the Place de la Comedie, we watched a little. "She smiled." Now we all know, is not? "she addressed to his eldest son about three years. Another woman, older, even relieved," For once, do not fight their way through the masses "she says. Indeed, during the weeks before Christmas, almost always Wintertime saw masses of visitors. But visitors en masse, it is there to do good business? - "Most people spend just to go to the Polygon Opera or the Comedie Corum," complained one trader. "If they have a little time, they stop sometimes, but not to buy. Just out of curiosity." And another: "People have more money."
consumer side, we hear different voices. "I do not even look over the stands," said a lady in her fifties. "I know them all. These are the same who come every year in winter for winter and summer for the summer. And in between, we see the markets. "Another lady, a little younger, especially the critical nature of the goods:" These things I can buy them anywhere. I do not know if the craft is still on the other Christmas markets, but in winter Montpellier, I find that resellers. "A gentleman in his sixties is in agreement." I liked the markets where you could talk with the artists and craftsmen. At that time, the markets still had the flair of the 'unique'. What we saw, we never saw anywhere else. "
A young trader includes the withholding of Montpellier. "This year will," she said in a voice a little sad, "the market is nothing easy. When it rains, people are upset. And on sunny days, there are still many people we can not quietly Thatcher. Everybody is stressed out. " What then? If people no longer like the Wintertime, the city of Montpellier should it be removed? "No," cried one lady spontaneously than thirty years. "Christmas without Christmas market is like ... it's like Easter without eggs." And a younger woman said: "How come in a Christmas mood if there is no winter?"
"No, certainly not remove the Christmas market," said a man also in his fifties. "But maybe improve a few things. It should, for example, allow a sort of corridor on the Place de la Comédie for people to pass. Place de la Comedie is a place of passage, we can not ask everyone to dive into the crowd and in preparation for Christmas only because it crosses the square. "
A lady of about the same age likes the idea of a "corridor". "I go through the Comedie each day two same time, to work. And being forced to move always stands beside and around people who stop in the middle of the road to watch me so tired I do not even want to take advantage of the market. "
Then, you want to see the craftsmen. "A Christmas market with lots of artisans, it would be too cool" features a young man, and he adds, with a little languor in his voice, as if recalled the "good old days": "As before. Twenty years ago, the Christmas markets were great ... "
Photos and text are copyright Doris Kneller
Copyright: Doris Kneller, 2009 
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