Christkindl is coming!
- anon
- Jan 8, 2022
- 9 min read
Updated: Mar 21
(DE) The youngest member of my circle of friends, three-year-old Bobby, is almost bursting with excitement waiting for Father Christmas. Then, on the evening of 24 December 2021, salvation comes in the form of lights on the Christmas tree and presents underneath.
Wishes come true, and you even get toys you didn’t ask for. The whole family is joyfully excited. Everyone unwraps something and is honestly or theatrically surprised. There is good food and sweets, and everyone seems happy and content with the sounds of Christmas in the background.
This experience will shape Bobby’s memory of Christmas, year after year.
My childhood Christmas memories go back over 60 years, in the 50s and 60s. Of course, the excitement and anticipation of Christmas Eve when the Christkindl (the Infant Jesus) would come was beautiful in my childhood. Still, otherwise, there were small but subtle differences.
The Christkindl was the star – no one knew Father Christmas.
Christmas was mystical for me because to us children of the 50s, the Christkindl came. Who it was and what it looked like, nobody really knew. A mixture of baby Jesus and an angel? There was a story that he flew in, conveniently through the window, and quickly put the presents under the Christmas tree. Then, when curious children peeped through the keyhole of the door of the Christmas room, which was usually the living room or, in our case, the kitchen, to catch a glimpse of the Christkindl, he would take the presents away again. A very nasty threat. That’s why I pinched my eyes shut while waiting for the Christkindl so I wouldn’t accidentally catch a glimpse of him.
At least when I was a kindergarten child, I had already seen the Christkindl: At the nativity play that every self-respecting kindergarten put on. The newborn baby Jesus lay in the cot in the form of a baby doll or wax figure and was called Christkindl (Infant Christ). Christmas was a Christian festival in Bavaria in the 1950s. Mary and Joseph’s search for shelter, the newly born baby Jesus in the stable, surrounded by his parents and adored by the shepherds, the appearance of the Star of Bethlehem and the visit of the Three Kings from the Orient Kaspar, Melchior and Balthasar were staged as an annual play for parents and children in the kindergarten, at school and in church. Almost every child was able to get a part to play. If the acting talent was not enough for Mary and Joseph, they could play the ox and donkey. At least they didn’t have to learn any lines.
The meaning of the celebration became apparent to a child. It was the birthday of the baby Jesus, and on birthdays you get presents, in this case representing Jesus, so to speak.
There was no Father Christmas who gave out presents for no reason and didn’t even ask if you had earned them by behaving well. Instead, St. Nicholas, who on the evening of 5 December paraded through the streets with his servant Ruprecht to reward children, attached great importance to being reassured that a child had behaved well throughout the year. That one had not indulged in bad habits, such as sucking one’s thumb or being a picky eater. Sometimes even other family members were interviewed as witnesses. And all the time, his servant Ruprecht beside him threatened to beat children who had misbehaved with his stick or was ready to put them into the sack he had brought with him. St. Nicholas, on the other hand, was prepared to hand over any amount of sweets once he was convinced that you’d earned it. This bearded man with a bishop’s mitre was the precursor of the Infant Jesus. He could be seen and touched, feared and loved, and sometimes he bore an amazing resemblance to an uncle or family friend. Sometimes, perhaps when he was in a hurry, he would leave his gifts outside the door and ring the doorbell, just when Dad had just gone down to the cellar to get a beer.
Yes, those were the fascinating, mysterious Christmas legends of my childhood. Is there a conclusive legend about Father Christmas from the North Pole? I don’t know.
Present-giving marathon on Christmas Eve
But then, as now, the lowest common denominator of Christmas was and still is: Family celebration!
Even my rather quarrelsome family tried hard to keep something like Christmas peace, which at times led to strange rituals.
During the first years of my life, I remember that Christkindl came in all three times on Christmas Eve. It seemed to be mainly occupied with me and my presents.
Just after getting dark, I was sent out from my maternal grandmother’s kitchen into the freezing bedroom because the adults had heard the soft tinkling of the angels accompanying the Christkindl outside the window. And lo and behold, the little bell rang out shortly afterwards. The radio played “Silent Night, Holy Night…”, the candles on the wonderfully decorated Christmas tree lit up, the sparklers, which are forbidden nowadays, gave off sparks.
There was the smell of pine needles, wax and wonder candles. I almost forgot from the amazement and awe that there were toys for me under the tree. When I had recovered from the shock and wanted to start playing, everything had to be packed up because the next stop was two doors down.
At my paternal grandparents’ house, the Christkindl had already arrived before us. When we were still on our way upstairs to grandma and grandpa’s, “Silent Night, Holy Night…” was already ringing through the hallway. And again, the Christmas tree was shining, and sparks were flying in the kitchen. Again there were toys and this time also clothes underneath. It smelled of candles and pine needles here too. I was suitably amazed again, but no longer so surprised, and got my hopes up for being allowed to play a little.
But no! As before, everything had to be packed up again. We drove home to the flat that my parents and I lived in together, more or less only at weekends. During the first years of my life, my father worked away from home during the week, and my mother worked as a saleswoman from morning to night. So I lived with my maternal grandmother. But at Christmas, we were together in our flat, and there was the ultimate final gift-giving session. This time we were quicker on the scene and arrived before the Christkindl. But my parents had this seventh sense that it must be coming soon. And lo and behold, the sound of “Silent night, holy night…” could be heard. There were candles and sparklers on the tree, presents under the tree. All the familiar rituals were performed again— for the third time. I could not bring myself to marvel excessively, but it was nice to be able to play and eat sweets in peace. My mother had the talent of preparing beautiful lavish Christmas plates. She also went through the trouble of hanging biscuits, colourful sugar- and chocolate-coated stars in the tree. It was like a land of milk and honey for me.
It’s fair to ask why this marathon of handing out presents was organised in my family during my toddler phase in this way. I can only explain it like this.
Triple Christmas stress for my working mother
My mother worked as a saleswoman in a clothing shop and therefore had to work until 2 pm on Christmas Eve. In the previous four weeks before Christmas, the Advent, the Saturdays had been so-called “long Saturdays”, meaning the shops were open until 6 pm six days a week. Usually, in the 50s and 60s, shops had to close at noon on Saturdays. Only once a month were they allowed to stay open until evening. But at Christmas, people were supposed to be given enough time and opportunity to shop all they could. Oh, joyous consumer world! But the shop assistants had to cope with the shopping frenzy of the years of the economic miracle. So they stood in the shops until the bitter end, in this case until early afternoon on 24 December, and served stressed Christmas present shoppers at the last minute. Today, extended opening hours are made possible by shift work. Back then, the Christmas extravaganza was simply part of the job.
So while my father and I passed the time at my grandparents’ house and developed a Christmas feeling with biscuits, stollen and storytelling, my mother sold shirts, ties and socks that were bound to end up under the Christmas tree. We were all relaxed and looking forward to Christmas, and then my mother arrived! Restlessness and stress on two legs!
She could have left the organisation of Christmas Eve to one of the grandmothers, but that was not in her nature. For better or worse, she wanted to stage the ideal Christmas with peace and shining child’s eyes according to her ideas. Everyone else, however, didn’t want to be nagged and did their own thing.
So it came that I had to go Christmas-hopping at its finest. That was exciting in itself and the Christmas of that time is a magical memory.
In one of those Christmas kitchens, we had sausages with sauerkraut and Schwarzer-Kipferl (special crusty rolls from the local bakery, Schwarzer), followed by a punch for the grown-ups.
I don’t remember exactly where it was because I didn’t give a damn. The main thing was Christmas!
Jealousy endangered the Christmas peace
But there was another reason for this triple Christmas special: jealousy! The poles that were at odds with each other were my mother and her mother-in-law, my paternal grandmother. While my mother tried to put herself and her own mother, who just wanted to relax and enjoy her peace and quiet, in the foreground of the Christmas spectacle, my other grandmother instantly and relentlessly complained about being left behind. It was essential to her that her gifts to me were associated with her. Also, that she was the exclusive beneficiary of the child’s beaming eyes and that the ambience was designed according to her ideas.
Therefore, there was only one solution to maintain Christmas peace, namely separate Christmases.
A few years later, when I was about 9 or 10 years old, Christmas peace was often not good. My parents now owned a modern three-room flat with a living room. That’s why all the grandparents met at our house on Christmas Eve. No more Christmas hopping! But my mother was still working in sales and came home exhausted and stressed out in the afternoon. Ideally, she would have needed some peace and quiet first, but the happy grandparents arrived almost simultaneously. They all expected a peaceful and harmonious Christmas atmosphere, thus stressing my mother even more. Palpable tensions were smouldering! But my mother always managed to get through the whole Christmas programme. The row usually came after the presents had been given. The jealous ladies had been eyeing each other to see if there were any reasons to be jealous. Jealous of better gifts, jealous of joy over a gift, jealous of anything.
Little as I was, I tried to help to avoid a bad atmosphere on Christmas. I learned to show as much joy as possible with each gift, turn on the sparkle in my eyes, find appreciative words, look at each present for the same length of time, and treat it with mindfulness. I also listened with interest to my grandmother’s explanations of the quality and expense of her gifts. I affirmed that I was delighted that exquisite bed linen could now be added to my dowry again, which I would appreciate very much.
Well, peace before sincerity!
Our international Christmas today
In the meantime, I have experienced many very different Christmases. When I was a student and lived in a shared flat, we celebrated without a Christmas tree but with a Christmas goose stitched together while playing cards. Then, of course, when my son was little, the magical Christmas spirits came back to life. Later, I spent many a Christmas alone, but that didn’t bother me much. My son, now grown up, lived in Asia for a few years and remembered that his heart was always heavy at Christmas and that he would have liked to be with his parents, father, stepmother and mother. Today it is like that. We have our own rituals, which are pretty international. First, we have a traditional Bavarian Christmas Eve with sausages and potato salad and have presents under the Christmas tree, brought by the Christkindl. Then, in the good old American tradition, we jointly raid our Christmas stockings filled with trinkets while still in our dressing gowns on Christmas Day. After that, the American stepmother and I cook the American turkey dinner all day, which we then ceremoniously eat in the evening. And finally, for the past six years, our Thai daughter-in-law has been cooking some delicious Thai dishes on Boxing Day.
We are all huge fans of our international Christmas. (TA)
If you want to learn how to build memories into stories and eventually write them up, you can find an example guide based on this Christmas memory on the page “Becoming an Author”.
Link to the guide
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