Germany’s ‘blackout’ sparks festive fervour

The resurgence of festive traditions coupled with blackout fears makes candles the target of the latest stockpiling frenzy, as many people are seeking comfort in the warm yellow glow of open flames this Christmas.

On Sunday, many German households will follow tradition to light the first of four candles on their Adventskranz wreath, which is typically laid on or hung above the dining-room table.

As the fears of gas rationing and power cuts brought by Russia's war in Ukraine stalk the land, candles have also undergone a revival as a reliable way to light homes. The home improvement retailer Bauhaus said it was seeing a rise in demand for candles of all kind, including tea lights, wax and pillar candles, with sales across the board up by around a quarter on the previous winter.

The public broadcaster ARD recently released a short video advising people against building tealight ovens to heat their homes. It warned that the heat generated was negligible compared to the potential fire risk.

A spokeswoman for the European Candle Manufacturers Association said that rising demand for candles was already a major cause of people spending more time at home during the epidemic, with continent-wide sales jumping dramatically between 2020 and 2021.

Ann-Kristin M ller of M ller Kerzen, a western German candle-making business in Europe, said we didn't quite know what to expect this year. It seems that people are stocking up on candles ahead of an uncertain winter.

My family has worked in the candle industry for eight generations, and it is turning out that ours is a very crisis-resistant business. In times of trouble, people yearn for the comfort of a flickering flame. After two years of booming sales, the Bavarian candlemaker Gala had anticipated sales dipping back to pre-pandemic levels. But all this talk about blackouts has encouraged people to stockpile, so we haven't noticed a difference, it said.

Germany's federal office for civil protection and disaster assistance said this week that a large-scale power blackout in Germany is extremely unlikely this winter. The country's network regulator said that the likelihood of regional power cuts was low because there were numerous mechanisms in place to stabilise the grid in the case of temporary shortages.

But Gala's CEO, Thomas Schr der, said booming candle sales also spoke of a broader cultural trait. There has always been a deep German yearning for an austere type of Gem tlichkeit or snugness, of humans gathering around a naked flame, he said. That is why you still have people like me who insist on lighting their Christmas tree with real candles rather than fairy lights, with a bucket of water at the ready for emergencies. Schr der conceded that the trend that was unlikely to be bucked this year was that the vast majority of Germans used electric lights on their trees. The German Insurance Association, an umbrella organisation of private insurers, reports a decline in fire-related claims in December since 2015.