No contest: Germans take the top prize for Christmas experience

Fans of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia will remember the magic wood in The Magician's Nephew. It was a strange, quiet place that was nowhere in itself, yet was the gateway to hundreds of other worlds if you jumped into one of the pools beneath the trees. I find myself thinking of that place as I visit Luxembourg, a tiny spot on the map that seems most noteworthy for being a crossing over point to other places.

We were over the German border in 20 minutes yesterday. Today, the same driving time took us to France. We spent more time in traffic approaching central Trier, in fact, than we'd spent getting to another country.

Our objective for the day was Trier's Christmas market. But it's worth noting that this city has plenty more to recommend it. It was the Northern capital of the Roman empire and has some great ruins, notably its impressive "porta negra", a multi-arched colossus of a city gate, now blackened by the soot of ages. It stretches along the Mosel river and is thus a centre of wine production and tasting. The cathedral is a venerable Romanesque pile, conjuring visions of the earliest bits of the Middle Ages. And the town is packed with festive gables, colourful statues and all the other little decorative elements that scream picturesque Germany.

The picturesque was marvellously enhanced by Trier's Christmas market, 95 wooden booths gathered around the main square and the square in front of the cathedral. The booths were decorated with lights and greenery, with the roofs of many sporting angels, santas or alpine animals. Both squares contained lavishly decorated carosels, and the square by the cathedral sported a towering, oversized version of one of those wooden christmas toys in which the lit candles drive a propellor at the top of a pyramid of figurines. (See my Facebook page for a full range of photos.)

The booths were similar to the types I'd seen in Vienna a fortnight ago, though perhaps with a bit more variety. Decorated gingerbread in the shape of hearts, booths filled with glass Christmas ornaments, mulled wine and luxury chocolates were in common across both fairs. But the German market seemed to have a wider variety of custom crafted items.

Woodwork was abundant. I've never seen so many nutcrackers, in such variety, in my life. Ditto the little figures that smoke incense, and the pyramids that spin under the candles. Most of the nutcrackers were of the traditional sort, and we saw a few that were real pieces of art you'd consider keeping on display all year. There were lovely nativity scenes in hand carved wood, and a profusion of thin, stencil-cut wooden scenes made into wall plaques, screens and candle holders. A booth in each square held a life-sized nativity scene of the type once seen in most American town squares but now legislated into private spaces. (Ironic that America, caught in the grip of a rising tide of Christian fundamentalism, has practically eliminated public displays of religious Christmas scenes. Whereas in Europe, where nobody is particularly concerned about religion and there are active Muslim and Jewish minorities, nobody seems to mind creche scenes and Christmas trees.) I was tempted by many things, but remained quite restrained in my buying.

The memory of the scene, however, was the best thing I could possibly carry away with me. This is Christmas as imagined in the most perfect holiday fantasies. Only snow was lacking. Even the soundtrack was there. Brass quartets mixed Mozart and carols. Men in traditional costume turned the handle on glockenschpiel-type things that issued fantastical tunes. And at 6, the sonorous yet cheerful boom of every bell in every church in town rang out for fifteen minutes, a magical cacophony unknown either in the United States or the United Kingdom.

After an afternoon walking through this fairy tale, one thing was very obvious to me. Though Americans think of England as the source of our Christmas traditions, the real font of holiday magic springs from Germany. I suppose we all owe Queen Victoria and Prince Albert a real debt for importing all this stuff into the Anglo-Saxon tradition.