“Merry Christmas to you, too, my Dieter,” I said before kissing him in return.
Dresden’s Striezel Market dates back to 1434 which, according to the locals, makes it the oldest Christmas market in the world, and it’s named for the Christmas pastry they, not surprisingly, claim to have invented. Part of the stollen’s early appeal stemmed from the fact that in 1491 the pope finally yielded to years of entreaty on the part of the rulers of Saxony, and allowed butter—previously forbidden during Advent—to be used in the making of Dresden’s Christmas stollen, giving it an unusually rich flavor for the time. Some claim the pope was swayed by the long, rounded oval shape of the stollen, said to represent Baby Jesus in his swaddling clothes. Especially since stollens are covered with white confecti
