Holidays in Berlin

It all depends on what your interests are. My eldest son and I thoroughly enjoyed the Checkpoint Charlie museum. I took myself to the Topogrophie Des Terrors and left the kids with my wife to enjoy the snow slide (I can't believe they didn't want to come with me!). I wasn't particularly impressed by the Christmas markets, lots of tat and little variety, they all sell the same stuff. Loved the DDR museum and so did the kids. The Brandenburg Gate was OK but we were there accompanied by driving freezing rain so we didn't hag around for long.

I don't get the obsession with Currywurst, a perfectly good sausage ruined by a nasty sauce of cheap ketchup mixed with curry powder leaving it grainy and without a depth of flavour, there are much better offerings in the various stalls.

We were only there for a weekend and could happily have spent longer.

Unfortunately jazz clubs and classical concerts aren't my thing so I have no advice to offer in that respect.

For classical concerts, start your search at the official website of Berlin.

Many thanks to "sla019" for the link. Most helpful.

Berlin operates a little special on Christmas days and before New Year. The city will re-fill up to a certain degree with so called locals who do not celebrate Christmas in Berlin. Additionally the number of visitors will grow up until New Year.

Brandenburg Gate you shall visit before 12/28 because building stage for NYE might include closures or minimum will impact photos.

Shops will be closed on Sundays (except 23 afternoon) and on 25, 26. On 24 and 31 nearly all close between 1 and 2 pm.

Most Christmas markets will be closed after Dec 23. The remaining ones you can find by filtering a 2018 Christmas markets map by opening dates.

VisitBerlin has a list of top-10-attractions. On this website you will find some more sights by interests. As a Berliner I am very ashamed of Checkpoint Charlie which is today a farce of what is was - remembering that at no place on Earth it was so eye-to-eye visible and possible that a WW3 could start.
Make yourself familiar with public transport which is essential to move around in the city.

Most classic concerts you will find completely booked out.
Jazz Clubs: Quasimodo, ZigZag, A-Trane, B-Flat, Schlot, partially Yorckschlösschen and few more.
One special tip are Gospel Concerts in new-gothic architecture church Auenkirche Wilmersdorf, what an acoustic for a choral.

Berlin has an extremely large number of WW II and especially Cold War historical sights. I find those fascinating, but not every tourists is as obsessed as I am. I found the Checkpoint Charlie Museum very interesting; it focuses on escape attempts. Both it and the DDR Museum can be quite crowded, though perhaps they will be less so in late December; my visit was during the summer of 2015. Any guidebook to the city (and you should definitely have a book that covers Berlin in depth) will give you a lot of historical sights to choose from.

The city also has many good art museums and the Pergamon Museum. The latter has things to interest people who aren't so into paintings.

I believe you can edit the title of your post, and I suggest you do so to include a reference to jazz and classical music. You may get some good responses by other music lovers who wouldn't otherwise open this thread.

Best reason to visit the Pergamon Museum ......... Nefertiti

Thanks to all for the helpful very insights and suggestions, especially ' MarkK ' for the timing of events etc. in that time frame.
Thanks
Kenh