Christmas in Germany

hannover-l
1

Hello Doreen,

I am from South Germany (Baden-Wurttemberg), 60 years old. When I was a
child in Mannheim, I sat in the dark kitchen with my great-grandfather
and/or grandfather during the afternoon, they would tell stories about
the Christkind.

When I read all these stories of past Christmasses it makes me sad that
these times are no more. The world has changed so much in our lifetime.
Perhaps it is nothing but nostalgia for one's youth but I just can't believe
that the children of today will someday be able to write about their
Christmas experience the way we read them here. That makes me sad.

In my own life (71 years young) I started out with the Weihnachtsman in
Protestant East Prussia. I don't recall much except for the songs and poems
my siuster and I would have to learn and recite. She was so good and could
remember the longest of poems while I struggled and often lost my place only
to have her help me out as she learned my poems too. My dear sister. I miss
her so. I don't remember presents at all from this time during the war but
I'm sure I always received something small. Somehow it just wasn't all about
presents. Later as refugees in the West, there would be the Bunte Teller
with cookies, an apple and maybe even a little chocolate or candy. It was
the highlight of my Christmas. This was now a Catholic area where the
Christkind made an appearance while we slept but it was St Nikolaus who came
with his sled when there was snow and stopped at each house with presents
arranged by the parents. This was on Dec 6. The tree was not seen until
Christmas Eve when we were permitted in the Gute Stube after church
services. It was all so magical. Whatever presents the Christkind brought
were distributed on Christmas Eve.

My parents continued the customs here in the states and after my sister and
I were married and had children, they grew up with these same customs and
all was well and holy. I can get emotional when thinking back to our
children reciting and singing all those wonderful German Christmas carols.
There was no tearing open of presents unil everybody had done something to
contribute to the Christmas spirit. It was the best of times. I beamed with
pride when my daughter recited the entire book of 'It was the Night before
Christmas' by heart as an 8 year old.

What has me perplexed is that neither of my kids saw to it that these
customs are continued. I guess it didn't mean as much to them as it did to
the parents and grandparents. Today I don't evn want to be at one of their
Christmases as all it is is a frenzy to tear open as many boxes as possible
in a short as time as possible or until one gets tired of the process. There
are so many toys and things that no one item has meaning. It is materialism
come to fruition.

I suppose today Christmas in Germany is also not what it used to be. All of
us have too much to appreciate the little things. We are spoiled and the
holyness of Christmas has gone except in the most religious of families.
It's a commercial event.

Anyway, I wish everyone a blessed and holy Christmas and hope that you can
retain some of what used to be.

Fred

2

Dear Fred,

I also don't look forward to a hurried rush of opening presents as fast as one can.

When I was a child the extended family christmas began on thanksgiving. This is when all the extended family would select from Grandfathers Sunday Hat..the person whom they were to buy a gift for.......

For us children the excitement would build until X-MAS day. We children trying to guess which Uncle , Aunt or cousin would be shopping for them.

Family gossip began the day after Thanksgiving as the ring of a telephone begat many a rumor.....

Aunt XXXX was caught whispering to Uncle XXXX about Cousin XXX's XMAS wishes.......Aunt XXXX traded with Cousin XXX........so that could choose a special gift for a favorite relative.

When XMAS day arrived and after XMAS morning at home with individual families, all would gather and my Grandparents home where the waiting began.

Not until after dinner dishes were washed and stored away did gift opening festivities begin.

And each gift was handed out one by one.

And one had to have patience because after two or three gifts had been handed out.....Grandfather always began singing.......

It's begining to look a lot like christmas......Everywhere you go.....

Silver bells........silver bells.........etc...

Until the patience was nearly at the breaking for the younger set of the family...

Oh no, Grandfather is singing again.....

Stop singing Grandfather!!! I want to open my present.

Oh how I wish I could hear my Grandfather sing again.

Just wanted to share a lost family tradition.

Warmest Regards,
Barbie

P.S. As a child a teacher taught our class about Saint Nicholas, & Saint Nicholas day. We were to put a shoe outside our bedroom door and when one woke up in the morning the shoe would be full of treats. My brother and sisiters liked the sound of that...Candy before XMAS.

Long story short.

I found chocolate in my shoe.

My siblings behaved badly that day......actually got rocks and coal. They little angels for the remainder of the month. :slight_smile:

3

Dear Listies,

Another family tradition is midnight mass. Anyone here still go to midnight mass?

The most holy-ist midnight mass I remember was at Mount Providence which was located on South Florissant Road near University of Missouri, Saint Louis.

My Aunt was a Sister of Charity nun as I was growing up and our family always attended summer celebrations there. She entered the convent as a novice when she was only 13 years old and stayed with the convent until she was nearly thrity.

I rember the summer picnics there, visiting the chapel. I think in the chapel there was supposed to be a finger of some saint. I remember the nuns kept dog kennels there. I remember attending a midnight mass with beautiful singing, the priest saying mass in singing voice with some latin. When time came for the sign of peace I remember seeing all the nuns in black habit greeting each other and everyone in the chapel with joy.

And I remember feeling happy, feeling joy.....

And giggles...

"Penquin" was slang for nuns at my school.

Warm Greetings,
Barbie-Lew

4

Those are really nice memories. I was raised Lutheran, and went to a
Lutheran school, and the kids from the school always had a Christmas eve
program for everyone. That's how I learned a few German hymns. The town was
a northwest suburb of Chicago, and almost all German back then, mainly
Lutherans and Catholics. There were absolutely no problems that I was ever
aware of between the two, I was born in 1955. My mom's parents were
Catholic, but her father was of French origin. I'm 3/4 german, and 1/4
french. My French grandfather moved to that town from Louisiana after WW1.

My parents grew up in the same town and they never spoke of any problems
between the two either. In fact, I was the 5th or 6th generation to grow up
in the same town. All of my German relatives settled there, so I was related
to a lot of people in town.

I learned how to read the old style lettering in German and how to pronounce
it all, literally at my grandma's knee. Unfortunately, I didn't learn the
meanings of all the words, I mainly just learned how to read it and
pronounce it. I learned German fairly easily though, but only had one year
of it in college.It has always been something I've had a desire to do, to be
fluent in it but I'm not around people who speak it anymore. I sure wish I
had asked to learn more of it back then.

Your letter reminded me that I once made an announcement that I wanted to be
a nun someday. I was probably pretty young, and didn't know it was a
particular religion and all that was involved. Maybe I liked what they wore,
I have no idea. Everyone just smiled :slight_smile:

After the church service which almost everyone attended, we'd go to my
grandmother's house and open our presents with her. She grew up opening a
few presents every year on Christmas eve.

The next day we opened presents at our house and then at my mom's parent's
house. I was definitely raised that Christmas was the celebration of Jesus'
birth, I always prayed first by myself before running and waking up my
parents at 6am.

We always had ducks on every holiday, never turkey, so I still love to eat
duck. My grandma would make stollen from an old family recipe every year. If
you haven't had it, it is nothing like fruit cake like some think! It is
more of a sweet bread with powdered sugar on top. I tried some stollen once
from a bakery in Germany, but it wasn't nearly as good as my grandma's
(naturally lol).

Those were wonderful days, I loved to be in the Christmas eve service every
year, and feeling so connected to everyone, sharing the joy of the
celebration of His birth.

My sister and I have continued the tradition a little, we taught our
children Stille Nacht when they were young, and my sister bakes the family
recipe for stollen. I also get an occasional duck, but haven't been able to
make it a complete substitute to turkeys ;(

The times are very different now, and I live near Seattle. In my hometown
Illinois, we knew most of the people and felt very safe. Where I live now,
in a suburb of Seattle, there is hardly a city center, you are lucky if you
know your neighbor, and it's as different as can be. I'm really glad I grew
up then and got to listen to the stories of people born in the 1880's and
1890's, most of them grew up on farms, including my grandmother. I just
loved to listen to them talk, it certainly was a blessing.

My best to all,
Susan Voth
(Busse, Kirchhoff, Stier, Behr, Behrens)