The Christmas House: a journey back in time to Christmas in Berlin 200 years ago

During the Advent season, the Knoblauchhaus Museum in the Nikolaiviertel once again transforms into the Christmas House. It invites visitors to enjoy festive insights into the Berlin Christmas spirit during the Biedermeier period and immerses them in the history of our Christmas traditions.

Of course, it is worth visiting the Knoblauchhaus Museum all year round, but now, during the Christmas season, the former residence of the Berlin merchant family Knoblauch has been transformed into a very special highlight: festively decorated inside and out, it takes visitors on a journey back in time to Advent in Berlin in the early 19th century. The rooms on three floors are decorated for Christmas, the smell of cookies and cinnamon fills the air, and historically decorated Christmas trees sparkle in the beautiful, authentic Biedermeier interior.

We find the display cases with old Christmas tree decorations particularly fascinating. These were artfully and delicately crafted from glass, papier-mâché, cardboard, or wax, as was a lovingly made old nativity scene. The library, where Carl Knoblauch loved to retreat to read, is decorated with wonderful old toys, from animal figures and miniature furniture to dolls and a large nutcracker, as well as other items that families and children would have used during the Christmas season 200 years ago.

A magnificently decorated tree also stands in the salon of the house. This is where the head of the household met with business partners and friends, and prominent Berlin personalities of the time, such as architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel and brothers Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt, were frequent visitors. Incidentally, a separate exhibition area on the upper floor is dedicated to their lives, so that visitors can also learn exciting facts about the educational reformer Wilhelm and the famous explorer Alexander von Humboldt.

You can also learn new things with interactive exhibition modules and a special Christmas audio guide that takes visitors through the exhibition and provides lots of additional information. An audio guide is of course also available free of charge all year round in German, English, Spanish, and Turkish.

The Knoblauchhaus Museum will continue to shine in festive splendor as the Christmas house until January 4. A day ticket costs €5. The Knoblauchhaus Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Different opening hours during the holidays and further information can be found here: www.stadtmuseum.de/en/events/the-christmas-house

The Knoblauchhaus Museum is one of three museums in the Nikolaiviertel that belong to the Stiftung Stadtmuseum. The foundation also operates the Ephraim-Palais Museum (current permanent exhibition “BerlinZEIT” with a discovery tour through 800 years of city history) and the Nikolaikirche Museum, Berlin’s oldest preserved church building, which offers a permanent exhibition entitled “Berlins Mitte” and a guided tour “Wo Berlin begann” (Where Berlin began) about the history of medieval Berlin and, of course, the building itself.