Climate Christmas: Europe’s holiday markets turn down the lights

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Is it possible to have too many lights at a Christmas market? Maybe. Here’s the Stuttgart Christmas market. Photo: Dan/flickr.

(A native of England, veteran journalist Matthew Diebel has worked at NBC News, Time, USA Today and News Corp., among other organizations. Having spent much of his childhood next to one of the world's fastest bodies of water, he is particularly interested in tidal energy.)

NEW YORK (Callaway Climate Insights) — OK, call me a Grinch, but here’s a casualty of Europe’s energy crisis that that I’m not too upset about: The news that many of Europe’s Christmas markets are turning down their lights, shrinking the number of stalls and forgoing traditional accompaniments like energy-sapping ice-skating rinks.

Talk about kitsch! I experienced a couple of them when staying with a German family in my student days trying to get in touch with my Teutonic roots. Twinkling lights, lots of them. Cloying displays of furry animals — fake and real — and sappy music. And then there was the ghastly gluhwein, a hot spiced concoction too heavy on sugary sweetness.

Now all that is being toned down, The Guardian reports.