The Dark Side of Christmas

My first official Christmas as an adult is over. Thank god! By the end of this long, long Christmas, I felt like I needed to write my parents a long letter of apology and thanks for all the Christmases I spent as a child (well, basically until this year).

First, some explanation about Christmas here… There are three main characters in the Christmas story:

St. Nicolaus, who visits on December 6^th and puts treats in the children’s shoes. He didn’t visit the kids at their house this year, because their mother said that they had been too bad this year. Yikes. But he visited here and they got the treats the next time they stayed with us.

Weihnachtsmann (Christmas man, a.k.a. Santa Claus). Generally he delivers the presents, but in our case, he only helps Christkind (see below), because Friederike is shitty scared of Santa Claus.

Christkind (Christ child). Basically, Christkind is a kind of angel-like creature, who decorates the tree and, in our case, delivers the presents. According to the kids, it is bad luck to see Christkind.

I told the kids about the tradition of making cookies for Santa Claus and leaving a glass of milk for him. We baked some cookies and left them on the window sill Saturday morning (Christmas celebrations start here on the 24^th) when we went to the playground and again Saturday afternoon when we went to church.

Here’s where I started feeling like an adult. As we were planning the Chirstmas weekend, Nico said, I guess we have to take them to church. The basic purpose here was to hear some Christmas songs (O Come All Ye Faithful, in German) and to see a little Nativity play. Because this was a special service just for kids, it was total chaos. You couldn’t hear the priest over all the whining, crying, shrieking kids. Plus there was one adult somewhere in the church who kept going “Shhhhhh!” really loudly at all the kids. That was the most entertaining thing for me, because it was completely ineffective and you could tell how annoyed the person was. So the kids went up to the front of the church to watch the play and we stayed in the back.

Just as the service was finishing, I snuck out the back and ran home to decorate the tree. Nico planned to walk home slowly with the kids and distract them as long as possible. Let me just tell you that decorating a Christmas tree quickly is not an easy thing to do. But I managed to get it done and then I called Nico’s cell phone to tell them that Christkind was here. They started screaming and running towards the house. Of course, I quickly emptied the milk glass, put the cookie back and opened the window (Christkind flies in through the window). The look on their faces when they came in and saw the tree, the presents and the open window were priceless. And when we showed them the empty milk glass, they were stunned. Friederike is just on the edge of not believing, but in that moment they were both true believers.

We sat down by the tree and Friederike nearly had a fit she was so excited to open her presents. But Nico had to quickly run down to the basement to leave the Santa Claus costume for his friend Tunk who would be arriving shortly. We started opening the presents and then someone rang our doorbell. Nico buzzed him in and went out into the hallway to see who it was. He quickly came back in and said, I think it’s Santa Claus, I can see his hand on the handrail, coming up the stairs (we live on the sixth floor). The girls ran to me and clung to me in a panic. Friederike was terrified. Karlotta soon grabbed my hand and asked me to go with her to look down the stairs, but I couldn’t convince Friederike and Karlotta wouldn’t go by herself. They soon hid under the couch, with Karlotta periodically sticking her head out to see if he had arrived. They were dumbfounded when he finally arrived and it was all rather awkward. Then he mentioned his Rute, which is a bundle of little sticks that Santa Claus carries for punishing the naughty kids. I guess the German Santa Claus is a little bit more old fashioned and believes in corporal punishment. Anyway, as soon as he mentioned the Rute, Friederike started crying. We were trying to get them to sing a song for him, but Friederike could not calm down. After a while, Karlotta walked over to the Christmas tree, got the drawing she had made for Santa Claus and gave it to him. Friederike eventually calmed down enough to do the same. Then he gave them each a little gift and talked to them about the importance of being a good role model for their little sisters (they have a half sister who is 1 ½).

Later on when we were talking (on speakerphone) to Nico’s mom, she said something like, “Oh, poor Tunk.” And then Friederike figured out that Tunk was Santa Claus. For the rest of the weekend, she was constantly saying, “Tunk was the Weihnachtsmann!!!!” Karlotta asked, “Do you think it was the real Tunk?”