Granny’s Legacy 5th Installment – Holiday Spirit

As everywhere in the world, the German holiday seasons starts when we are not quite ready yet. Shops change their interiors, streets are decorated with lights and wintergreens …. All the while we wonder what happened to Indian summer and the last harvest. The commercial timing didn’t deter Granny. She put up HER holiday decorations when she was darn good and ready, as she always had, five Sundays before Christmas day (1st Advent), and to heck with the new world of commerce. As a child, of course, the time from where the first decorations appeared in the outside world, and the time Granny considered holiday season was rather hard to breach. By the time she put up the first sign that she meant business I had already been slobbering all over myself in anticipation for weeks.

The concept of Holiday Spirit was simple for Granny. It meant just that. Spirit. Peace. Safety. Warmth. Home, and Happiness. Capital letters. No fancy decorations, no elaborate trappings. Her ritual was always the same. She had an ancient, forest green ceramic bowl, fitted with 4 holes for candles and a bowl inside for the (YESSSSSSSSSSS) Christmas cookies. Small branches of fragrant fir were stuck between the candles. We also have real bee wax candles on our Christmas trees. Nobody in Germany gives a flying fig about fire hazards, we want the real thing. Then again, we hardly ever have fires either. I guess we are too busy being glued to the tree when it’s lit for any of them to ever remain unsupervised. Granny’s only pride and decoration for the sacred bowl were two delicate birds perched on metal clips to fasten them to the branches, made of glass as thin as a wisp, and painted to life-like perfection, with long tails out of angel’s hair (very thin hair-like pieces of glass, touch and break one and you’ll have it in your fingers still spring break – yes there USED to be three birds…. The last two I was forbidden to touch by threat of the never delivered whupping).

The ‘Pfeffernuesse’ (gingerbread globes) and the Spekulatius (spiced cookies) that filled the bowl started out soft and chewy, while the last of them would become rock hard after a few weeks. Their fragrance, along with the fir branches would spice up the whole living room, and that was all that was needed along with Granny’s serenity to induce the holiday spirit. For me, the Magick of Christmas was the miracle of the never emptying bowl of cookies. It took me years to catch her sneaking about refilling it a few cookies at a time so we would not notice. I don’t think we were really expected to be able to eat lunch or dinner the first few days. Only once a year would Granny bake the cinnamon stars, vanilla crescent moons, fruitcakes…. And there wasn’t a soul in the house who wouldn’t have killed to receive an equal share of it (Granny included). The baking would go on for days and days, there simply is no smell like it. All grown up, holiday season doesn’t truly begin to feel right until I had my first taste of cinnamon stars, although now I buy them instead of kneading the dough for hours.

After the activity of the first few days, this was also the time for quietness, relaxed and peaceful, with soft music and needlework. Many evenings there was nothing but the flicker of candles, the sizzling of the wax, and the busy clicking of Granny’s knitting needles. I could drowse and dream for hours watching her nimble fingers fly. When it was ‘one more story’ for other children to ward off bedtime, my prayer was always for ‘one more row’.

As the days got colder and winter approached with icy flowers on the windows and flurry snow storms, we watched the softening world outside, bundled up and leaning on the windowsill, noses pressed to the small circles we rubbed and huffed onto the glass. When no amount of clothing could keep us from getting the shivers, Granny would start to fire up the old oven. A big monster with heavy lids and cast iron plating, I am amazed I never once burned myself growing up (I did, however, as a teenager, lean against it to warm my frozen behind and singed a favorite pair of pants beyond recognition). The stove itself was part of the Magick. Granny would occasionally throw a few pine needles onto the hot top, and a better incense I have never smelled in all my life. Good thing we don’t have smoke detectors over here, I could not get enough of it and was prone to filch a whole branch if no one was looking. I have been caught in a totally smoked up room plenty a times :) Surprisingly, I wasn’t admonished. Much. Granny would smile and shake her head, and quietly open a window, fanning her face.

The stove also harbored a pot of liquid gold: homemade hot cocoa. The pot would appear around the time the sun set, and adults and children alike would frequently stroll over to top off their mugs. I fondly remember (probably the last person left on this planet) hot bricks heated on it as night time approached, wrapped in heavy duty blankets and deposited at the foot of the bed. Bedrooms had no heaters back then. On days where I deserved a treat, my brick might be replaced a second time as I drifted from shivers to comfortable warmth, with Granny softly tiptoeing out after briskly exchanging it.

The daily routine of walking the meadows was now expanded to exploring frozen lakes, slipping and sliding, hand in hand, over the ice and scaring the ducks. Granny did never stand by, she was always right in the middle of having fun. By the time we’d get home both of us would be soaking wet with snow clusters frozen to our hair and clothes. More times then one it was I begging off and complaining of cold feet. Granny was made of harder stuff. I think if she could have found a pair that fit she would have learned to skate right along with me.

The weeks before Christmas were filled with traditional winter dishes, Sauerkraut, Green Cabbage dripping with bacon and sausages, thick stews, the type of generally heavy, greasy dishes to help ward off the cold. Then, about one week prior to Christmas, one morning there would be a tree, miraculously decked out in all its splendor. I can’t remember ever seeing it naked, she must have smuggled it in and decorated it during the night.

In Germany, ‘Santa’ comes on the eve of the 24th. The family would gather, share a fancy meal of roasted goose or other poultry, depending on what you could afford, and exchange presents (no myth here. Santa was a buddy who was good to wish to, but we knew very well where the presents came from). There never was much. New mittens (whose color and pattern I’d recognize, of course, as Granny’s handiwork), maybe a matching hat or scarf, a new pad of scrap paper, some precious chocolate, a handful of nuts…. And one store-bought present for each child, chipped together for by the whole family. Looking at the rooms of children today, I pity them for their amount of dolls and toys. All my life, I have been given one large doll, one stuffed animal, one coloring set, one Barbie, one pair of skates, long wished for several years in a row….. one small bicycle. And couldn’t have been happier. The Christmas I received the doll stroller I bawled for hours. And until today, I know exactly which present I received each year, and recall the excitement and the feeling of happiness, love, and yes, gratefulness. All my possessions gradually filled the bottom drawer of Granny’s commode (a four drawer construction that now resides in my basement) and they were there as long as she was. Granny saved them all. How much richer were we, being so much poorer.

I often think that the true spirit of the holiday season is lost to us today. Well, to those of us who don’t have women like Granny to remember as a role model. When was the last time you stood awed at night, watching a shooting star while your breath curled around you, or silently shed a tear for the joy of being alive and warm, and your loved ones safely tucked away? When did you not get caught up in the stress of holiday shopping, wrecking your brain what to buy? Haggled over the perfect tree? Been exhausted and ready to forget the whole thing by the time you came home? Maybe this season, instead of spending more money then last year, or trying to top the neighbor’s gaudy lightening chains, take a ripe apple, dust it with cinnamon, fill the core hole with brown sugar, and find an old stove to bake it on. Granny would serve it with home made vanilla sauce …….

Green Blessings and a Delightful Season,

© Sorceress SummerWind, August 2000, In Memory of Granny