For Lilo –
Memories of Christmas in Beilrode:
Memories of Christmas start with pictures from the pre-Christmas season: snow, sometimes up to our bedroom’s window! I remember waking up one morning and hearing the "men from the Kornhaus [granary]" shoveling the yard and windows from the snow. Pre-Christmas time – school holidays, sledding on "our mountain", next to the house! There was so little traffic at that time that we often, to our mother's horror, simply tobogganed across the street! And then, sledding in the puddle of water (near Zwethau), first icy cold, but quickly warm, red cheeks and endless fun! Again and again up the mountain and whizzing down, in the end tired home, but not before it gets dark!
Ice skating on the village pond, but preferably on the road, which was polished to a mirror by horses and carts, - buying breakfast rolls on ice skates (for Mrs. Starkloff) and getting 20 pfennig for it, (and trying to spend them without an entry in the cash book, which was strictly controlled by the father!)
But I actually wanted to tell you about Christmas: My pre-Christmas memories mainly include mother's Christmas bakeries, many, many gingerbreads, (children help cut out and lick bowls and spoons!), carrying stollen on trays to the bakery, marking them with wooden sticks and picking them up again after baking. Marzipan (in war from semolina and powdered sugar with sweetener and bitter almond baking aroma.
Our handicrafts - gifts were not bought, always homemade. At that time, I rarely, or maybe never?, produced needlework (sewing or knitting, etc.), but drawings, whole books, games and fretwork! We collected for the "Winterhilfe"1), and once we exhibited a whole shop window full of toys at Kaufmann Kastens, and made everything ourselves! What beautiful gifts our mother conjured up for relatives and acquaintances during the war: baskets made of soap (rarity!) with pins and ribbons, flower pots with plants made of wooden spoons and colorful dusters and pot scrubbing brushes, true works of art! I later successfully recreated many of them as highly sought-after original gifts.
Christmas Eve in Beilrode was an unforgettable day for us children full of excitement and secrecy and half-hidden preparations; mother worked in the kitchen, father in the locked good room, and we never really knew where to stay without being in the way, and yet we couldn't "go out" or start anything else without fear of missing something. Towards evening, after much mysterious rustling and crackling and other exciting noises, the large iron key was pulled out of the door lock to the good room (from the inside, of course!) and we were allowed to sniff through the keyhole, an indescribable scent! It smelled of fir, apples, gingerbread, nuts and candles, we heard doors open and close – was that Santa Claus or Grandma2) and Aunt Lonny3)?!
At last, at last, when we really could no longer sit still for excitement, and in the meantime had completely forgotten the poems to recite in front of the Christmas tree, the long-awaited ringing of a small silver bell sounded, the miracle happened: slowly and solemnly the door to the good room opened!
What we saw now was like every year, always the same, and, like every year, always new, it was Christmas, the highlight of every year of our childhood! In one corner, on father's desk, stood the most beautiful Christmas tree in the world! (I know, every family had the most beautiful tree, but ours was the most beautiful!), you have to have seen it to follow my descriptions, the most beautiful pictures are always in the memory, without words! A real, fresh, wonderfully fragrant fir tree brought from the forest herself, decorated with highly polished red apples, gilded and silver-plated nuts, chocolate squiggles, colorful glass balls, tinsel, angel hair and real wax candles, and underneath always mother's ancient little Santa Claus!
We knew from experience that our gifts were set up on the next table – but no one dared to look inside at first. First the carefully learned Christmas poems had to be recited, for this we stood directly in front of the Christmas tree, with our backs to the room; we knew that behind us in the half-dark room – the only light came from the candles on the tree – our visitors were sitting and listening to our solemn lectures with our parents!
How can you recite with good emphasis and try not to squint at the gift table or be distracted by the wonders of the Christmas tree! Most of the time everything went well, then with a very relieved mind the greeting of the guests (mostly Aunt Lonny, in the past often with grandma!), with handshakes and curtsies and kisses, "Merry Christmas" and presentation of the homemade gifts, yes then, finally, we were allowed to admire our own gifts!
Lilos and mine on the big table, and later Helgas on the sewing machine, all the tables (and the sewing machine!) were covered with white tablecloths and decorated with fir branches and golden cones. Larger gifts, e.g. our new toboggan, were set up under the table. We were always given plenty of gifts, I still can't imagine how our parents managed to do all this, especially during the war years! Every Christmas there was a colorful plate for everyone, beautifully painted star-shaped paper plates, filled with gingerbread, chocolate, apples, nuts, marzipan pigs and other treats and, as a highlight, an orange! And there were always a few small fir branches!
We always got something to wear, pajamas, aprons, sweaters or even a new dress! Toys, dolls – new and old, which suddenly disappeared shortly before Christmas and then sat on our gift table on Christmas Eve, completely dressed in new clothes in the midst of all the other glories! To this day, I am particularly grateful for the many carefully selected good books that have accumulated in my "library" over the years as Christmas presents. I have to mention one of the many homemade gifts in particular: My caravan, father's masterpiece! A green gypsy wagon drawn by white circus horses, a ladder for the puppet people, an interior made by mother, chairs, table, sofa!, real windows, a double door and even a box with a lock under the wagon! Afterwards, I proudly walked through the village, pulling the caravan with a horse on a string behind me to Hem's farm at the other end of Zschackau4) – it's a good thing that there was no snow at Christmas this year, only dry, hard frost! (By the way, that was the year in which Lilo got her big arbor with dozens of farm animals - what our father must have worked on it, and all secretly, we never noticed anything about it!) In my rush to talk about Christmas, I forgot to say – and this is very important! - that on Christmas Eve we always had potato salad and sausages, a custom that I have adopted into my own family life with many others, we still eat potato salad and sausages (with apples, onions and walnuts) on the evening of December 24th. We didn't know it at the time, but today it is quite clear that we always had the best Christmas feast, back then in Beilrode, because no one has ever cooked as well as our mother!
Roast goose and red cabbage on the first holiday, blue carp on New Year's Eve, and roast rabbit or saddle of venison on New Year's Eve! Our Christmas holidays have always been quiet and cozy, still filled with the Christmas festivities of Christmas Eve, and no one will be able to forget the singing and making music, Father and Lilo's violins and our recorders with Mother's lute, nor the playing and reading (and eating!) of the Christmas holidays, the wonderful scents, the candlelight and the sparklers on the Christmas tree!
That's the end for today, this is not meant to be a story to read aloud or tell, just a few thoughts of times long gone, picked out of my memory treasure chest, and if you are a little happy about it and can perhaps still remember some things – then my lines have served their purpose.
Erstellt am 11.07.2024 - Letzte Änderung am 11.07.2024.