Glittering icicles, waving Santa Clauses and reindeer made of fairy lights: Pompously decorated Christmas houses are supposed to provide a ray of light in the pandemic.
Mössingen / Karlsruhe – Just in time for the first Advent, the first Christmas houses across Germany sparkle and shine.
With their decorated private buildings, the residents want to bring the Christmas spirit back to life. In the past year, many had to cancel the spectacle because of the corona measures. Also this season, some operators do not dare to attract crowds with their decorated houses.
A forest full of reindeer
“Now more than ever,” says Jenny Bauer, on the other hand, who decorates her Christmas house in Mössingen, south of Stuttgart. “The time is hard enough anyway, we want to make it a little easier for people.” If you walk through her garden, you will come from a brightly lit train station to a ski slope, and across the North Pole to a whole forest full of reindeer. Jenny Bauer and her partner Boris Müller are working on and planning their world of lights all year round. “It’s not just a hobby for the winter,” emphasizes Bauer. That’s why it’s Christmas for them all year round.
A Christmas house was also decorated in the Karlsruhe district of Neureut. “It will definitely light up,” said operator Thorsten Grüger. The only thing he will do without shows and music this winter. Grüger is particularly proud of his self-made, six-meter-high tree. Around 14,000 LED lights illuminate it in all colors and patterns.
Everything should light up by the fourth Advent
If you want to know how such an opulent Christmas light is created, Thomas Schwaiger in Pliezhausen – also located in Baden-Württemberg – can watch the decorations. He’s only now starting to hang up the 90,000 or so lights. He wants to finish his Christmas house by the fourth Advent. To do this, he now works almost six hours a day. “Then there is something new to see every evening,” said Schwaiger.
Whether Delmenhorst in the north, Balzhausen in the south, Oberhausen in the west or Merseburg in the east – there and in many other places throughout Germany, private people have again lavishly decorated their homes and gardens. Some of them had switched on their decorations, sometimes with tens of thousands of lights, long before the first Advent. dpa
