Can anyone enlighten us with Holiday customs of our grandparents?
Hello Joan,
I was hoping to see some replies to your query. Maybe I'll start.
Although this isn't a tradition within my family, I have heard that there
was a custom of hiding a glass pickle on the Christmas tree and on Christmas
Day (I think) the children were challenged to find it. Does anyone on this
list have the Christmas pickle tradition in their family?
Chris
Lloyd., AB
__________________________________________________________________ Chris
Bailey ICQ#: 9692283 Current ICQ status: + More ways to contact me i See
more about me:
Hello Joann,
There are so many Holiday customs that it is difficult to write about them
in short e-mails. If you know somebody who speaks German to translate for
you I can recommend the following book:
Henry Gawlick, Schimmelreiter, Knapperdachs und Weihnachtsmann, Hinstorff
Verlag
Anne
Thanks, I'll give it a try..
Jo
Joan,
One tradition that my father's family used to do for New Years was to melt
some lead in a spoon over a candle. When the lead became liquid they would
drop it into cold water and by the way the lead hardened they would read
their fortune for the coming year.
Chris
__________________________________________________________________ Chris
Bailey ICQ#: 9692283 Current ICQ status: + More ways to contact me i See
more about me:
Thank your Ron, I have enjoyed the comments regarding the lead, and also the
pickle tradition. Our family made pfeffernuese cookies, and also rosettes
and lefse (from the Scandinavian side).
Joan
Presently I am preparing to make pfefferneuse,stollen,German Christmas
cookies (ground almonds/citron etc.), and marzipan. These are but a few
of my families traditions. I treasure each and every moment it takes as
I have so many special memories as a small child of the excitement there
was in my family as each of us eagerly awaited the arrival of these
special treats.
A favorite tradition in our family is nighttime visits
from Rupert, Santa's helper, who puts small treats in
our shoes several times before Christmas day. I don't
know whether it was a custom of my BERGMANN ancestors
from Sprendlingen, Hesse or my WEINBERGs near Malk,
Mecklenburg but it has been a part of my Christmas for
over 70 years. And though our children live far from
home they celebrate with Rupert and my husband & I
still share that tradition. Dottie
--- John and Marcia Fotopoulos <foto@net-magic.net>
wrote:
Hi Dottie,
when I was a child in Silesia (now Polish) I had to put my shoes outside the
door the night before December 6 (Nikolaus-Tag) in order to get them filled
by "Nikolaus" (= Santa Claus) and/or "Knecht Ruprecht", a kind of servent of
Nikolaus (obvious your Rupert; the ethymology of "knecht" corresp. to the
engl. "knight"; in the old times, when we had a far more rural society, a
knecht was not the farmer himself but the first hand he had, perhaps
corresp. to the english ploughman). When I was even younger, Knecht Ruprecht
also knocked at the door, stepped in with his sack, filled with nuts, apples
and other presents - and a rod. We children then had to sing some chorals or
recitate some poems. For all the misdoings he was fairly well informed of
one gets some light strikes with the rod, but as mostly children behaved
rather well, we always got some of the presents. - Inspite of this rational
definition there was always an uncertainty, if Knecht Ruprecht and Nikolaus
were not the same person. - However, they both, Knecht Ruprecht and/or
Nikolaus, prefered later, when I grew up, not to appear personally but
filled at night our shoes in front of the door.
Its nice to hear you still have this tradition.
Merry Christmas or Froehliche Weihnachten
Wolfgang
-----Urspr�ngliche Nachricht-----
Knecht Ruprecht indeed has his own tradition, and a very old and different
one, too. His later appearence together with St. Nikolaus originates in the
efforts of the Catholic church to baptize the Germanic peoples during the
early middle ages. For our forefathers then didn't want to let off their
pre-christian heathen customs, the church caused them to do this by building
chapels and churches just ontop of their holy fields, often made out of wood
of their holy oaks and out of holy stones, too, by baptizing men by using
the water of holy springs which had been changed into Christian springs, and
so on. In short: the missionaries (mis)used Germanic holy places and also
customs as their own.
For instance, Jesus surely wouldn't be born on Xmas day; but this date was
holy to the Germanic peoples as time of the winter solstice, the Jul fest
(cf. "Jul" in Scandinavia still means "Christmas"). And Eastern was the fest
of the Germanic goddess Ostara. The summer solstice became the day of St.
John.
There are many more examples for this: Our German, the Dutch, the English
and Scandinavian days of the week are named after Germanic gods:
Montag/Monday = the day of Mond (moon); Dienstag/Tuesday = day of Tiu;
(Mittwoch = mid of the week)/Wednesday = day of Wodan/Odin;
Donnerstag/Thursday = day of Donar/Thor; Freitag/Friday = day of goddess
Freia. Romance names of the days come from Latin, as also is
Samstag/Saturday = day of Saturnius. And Sunday, how should it be, is the
day of the Sun.
Well, Knecht Ruprecht (or "Krampus" in Bavaria and Austria) is an old
heathen Germanic character. His origin is found in the believe of the
everlasting struggle between the seasons and their good and bad natures and
beings. Good and bad in the daily living of Germanic peoples always used to
struggle against another, and the people tried to support the good beings of
the surrounding nature by scaring away the bad ones. Part of this was
Ruprecht. He was the negative, gloomy and fierce heathen one, bringing a rod
to the bad children, counterpart and downgraded to the helper of the good (=
the new Christian) St. Nikolaus bringing some gifts to the good children.
The moral was, be good and be a Christian to get some gifts ...
Also the Alemannic "carnival" in south-west Germany is a very old relic of
Germanic believe to drive out the beings of the long cold winter by using
colorful and fierce masks and making a lot of noise in order to scare away
the bad beings and to meet the light, good natures of spring and summer.
This "carnival" has nothing to do with the Catholic carnival in spring.
Having carnival fest in spring also was another attempt of the church to
eliminate the heathen customs by using this period for celebrating Christian
customs.
Greetings to all.
Juergen