("We Wish You a Merry Christmas")

- It's a familiar holiday complaint,

Christmas today is too commercial,

but the tradition of Christmas shopping

is more than a thousand years old,

and it all started right here,

in the Christmas markets of Europe.

The earliest versionof the Christmas market

is thought to be Vienna's December Market.

(chisel scrapping)

It dates back to 1294,

when shopkeepers held an outdoor market

so people could stock upon supplies for the winter.

After that, December marketssprang up all over Europe,

and over time, people setup stalls to sell baskets,

toys, and wood carving,

others sold roasted nuts,meats, and gingerbread.

Also popular was a new kind of sweet,

known as the candy cane.

- 1670, Cologne Cathedral,imagine the scene,

the Christmas children'sservices are going on,

but the children are chatting away,

and being a little bit bawdy.

And so, the choirmaster wantedto calm the children down,

so he invented these things, candy canes,

he brings them out, andsuddenly the children

could be chewing on them,

and keeping a little bit quiet services.

The choirmaster has the idea

that if you make them like acrook, like a shepherd's crook,

it's something they cantake away with them,

if they haven't eaten them already,

to remind them in someway of one character

in the Christmas story.

("We Wish You a Merry Christmas")