by Gerlinde Graf-Saus of Alexanderhausen
Translated by Diana Lambing
Published at DVHH.org, 2004 by Jody McKim Pharr    

     It happened once upon a time on a winter’s day shortly before Christmas 1969. Just like every other time that he went to buy bread in the village, Vetter Klos (Nikolaus Hanoe, then well into his eighties) called in at our house for his usual glass of wine. His tracks in the snow always looked more like ski tracks. He told me, amongst other things (I was four years old at the time), that he had seen the Christ Child climbing down the long ladder from Heaven into the meadow at the edge of the village. I was fascinated...

     On the day before Christmas Eve I discovered the half-decorated Christmas tree in the room next door during my afternoon nap. Proudly, I told Mama that the Christ Child had already started preparations.

     At last it was Christmas Eve. The suspense grew. Suddenly, we heard a bell ringing in the yard. Tata (my father) went out and accompanied the Christ Child indoors. It was a lady dressed in glittering white robes and with a very high voice and she carried a sack and a cane under her arm.

     She (i.e. ‘he’) wanted to know if it was correct that children were living here, whether they were good children and whether I could recite a poem or sing a song for ‘him’. The chain of electric star lights twinkled on the Christmas tree - the miracle candles worked! We sang ‘Oh, Tannenbaum’ and ‘Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht’ (Silent night, Holy night) and, of course, I received a present from the sack.

     And so it was every year, with the only difference being that I now knew who decorated the Christmas tree and who the Christ Child had been that year, namely Aunt Lissi (Elisabeth Sadorf), our neighbor from across the road. My sister Helga and I now decorated the tree in the ‘Glasgang’ (a sort of winter garden) where everything glittered magnificently until ‘Heiligen Drei Königen’. On Christmas Eve we ate in the evening and afterwards the handing out of presents (everyone received something in our house), and best of all was everyone singing ‘Oh, Tannenbaum’. We all went together the Midnight Mass. It usually began at 11 p.m. during Father Huhn’s time with the nativity play performed by the children of the village.

     The crowning glory of the festivities came at the end when the Alexanderhausen Brass Band played ‘Silent night, Holy night’ at the top of the church tower. Then we all went home through the snow which crunched under our feet.