Homemade crowns and colorful turbans adorn the children's heads.
Their magnificent velvet capes and robes draw the attention of the walkers and make almost everyone who walks over the Römer on this Friday morning pause for a moment and watch the hustle and bustle.
Under the motto "Strengthen children, protect children", the 64th Dreikönigssingen campaign begins with around 650 carol singers from all over Germany.
Together with their 200 companions, they follow a service on the big stage and various musical interludes before they are sent to go from house to house disguised as the Three Wise Men and collect donations for a good cause.
In this year's campaign, the young participants, true to their motto, focus on protecting children from violence and draw attention to girls and boys who suffer from physical, sexualized and psychological violence.
The project partners of the carol singers work worldwide to ensure that children can grow up in a safe environment.
Each year, at the opening event, a charitable project and the country in which the project takes place are presented – in this case it is Indonesia.
“Empower children, protect children”
The event was moderated by young carol singers, Miriam Honemann from Bad Camberg and Jakob Bechold from Kelkheim.
The thirteen-year-old and the eleven-year-old spoke to the Bishop of Limburg, Georg Bätzing, as a representative of the diocese that prepared the opening as host.
The nationwide sponsors, Pastor Dirk Bingener as President of the children's missionary organization "Die Sternsinger" and Domvikar Stefan Ottersbach from the Association of German Catholic Youth, were also on the stage.
They also went into the motto in their speeches and were happy that "children do something for children".
On the journey through their hometowns in the coming days, the carol singers are to be symbolically accompanied by three gifts that they solemnly hand over to each other.
These include a golden crown, a card with “Children have rights” written on it in colorful letters, and a relay star, which was driven across the cobbled square on e-scooters.
To celebrate the day, since everyone after the two-year pandemic was able to meet again in person, the starting signal was accompanied by a La Ola wave and a confetti cannon.