German-inspired holiday market funds cultural exchanges

by Judy Stringer

Hudson had better watch out: Krampus is coming (back) to town.

The horned anti-St. Nick returns to the Clocktower Green Dec. 10-12, as part of the 2021 Christkindlmarkt, a winter street fair modeled after traditional Christmas markets popular throughout Germany.

Christkindlmarkt debuted in 2018 with an estimated 14,000 visitors during a mild-weathered December weekend, according to the event’s publicity chair Karen Farkas. Crowds were thinner for the cold and rainy 2019 running, and the market was cancelled last year due to COVID.

“Now we’re back this year, and again we have a really great lineup of entertainment and vendors and one of the best parts is that due to [Ohio Revised Code], we can now sell Glühwein, which is a German mulled wine, and Hop Tree is creating a special beer for us too,” Farkas said.

Christkindlmarkt is the product of Hudson-Landsberg Sister City, an organization dedicated to strengthening bonds between Hudson and the Bavarian town of Landsberg am Lech. Committee Chair Jeff Moore said the two municipalities officially became “sister cities” in 1984 through the leadership of Hudson resident Roland Winzer, who was a German teacher at Hudson High School at the time.

Winzer, also a soccer coach, had made trips to Germany with his club teams in the 1970s, and during one of those visits befriended other coaches and families in Landsberg, eventually establishing a student exchange program between the two cities.

Moore said “cultural exchange” remains a central focus of the sister city organization. He established Hudson-Landsberg Sister City as a nonprofit shortly after succeeding Winzer as committee chair in 2010.

“We wanted to be able to do things like fund scholarships to Landsberg and encourage students to take German, and we can’t do that without any funds, and so I thought Christkindlmarkt would be a great one-two punch, to raise money and get our name out in the community with an event downtown that everyone is invited to,” said Moore, a German teacher at Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School and Hudson resident.

In July, the organization introduced its second major fundraiser, the Hudson Biergarten, which also had a strong debut, according to Moore. He hopes Biergarten, like Christkindlmarkt, can become a perennial Hudson tradition.

International experiences

Hudson-Landsberg Sister City scholarships are open to any Hudson student taking German. The funds help pay for airfare, Moore said, and he and his team place students with a host family in Landsberg, which means they incur few other costs. The exchange students stay abroad for up to three months. Those trips, however, have been on hold since early 2020 because of the pandemic.

“We are excited to restart our exchange program after a long hiatus,” Moore said. “We currently have two boys in Landsberg applying to come to Hudson for three months this school year. We hope to have them placed in families for the spring semester. We also have a girl in Landsberg, whose trip was canceled last summer due to restrictions. She is looking forward to traveling to Hudson during the summer of 2022.”

In addition, the organization is accepting applications from HHS German students interested in visiting Landsberg during the summer of 2022.

“The school in Bavaria goes until the end of July, so students would have the opportunity to experience school life during their stay,” said Moore, who coordinates with HHS German teacher Richard Kiovsky to identify interested students.

Along with high school travel scholarships, the sister city organization provides grants to Hudson residents taking German in college. The money helps cover the cost of books, Moore said.

Sister city groups on both sides of the Atlantic also coordinate periodic summer trips for their residents who want to experience either Hudson or Landsberg. Moore is expecting between 15-20 Landsberg visitors this summer. They will spend a week in Hudson, he said, and visit D.C. and some other U.S. cities. Then it will be the Hudsonsites’ turn to experience Landsberg’s culture.

In the future, Moore envisions fostering some economic ties between the two cities as well, possibly by creating internship travel opportunities where “anybody from Hudson can go and work in Landsberg’s industrial park and vice versa.”

Here comes Christkindlmarkt

For now, the Hudson-based sister city volunteers invite community members to come down and experience a bit of that Bavarian culture and charm at Christkindlmarkt.

The event takes place Friday, Dec. 10, from 4-8 p.m.; Saturday, Dec. 11, noon-8 p.m. and Sunday, Dec. 12, noon-4 p.m. It will feature German food and drinks, traditional German music and dancing, vendors selling a variety of homemade merchandise, visits from Krampus and St. Nicholas, as well as a Krampus-themed kiddie scavenger hunt.

“It’s just a really fun and festive event,” Moore said, “and one more way we can promote and share that German connection with the whole community.”

Farkas hopes Christkindlmarkt visitors experience “gemütlichkeit.”

“While there is no direct English translation, gemütlichkeit is the type of joy that can only be experienced when surrounded by the friendliness and joy of others,” she said. ∞