The Haysville Times
By Kathleen Barkley
Throughout Germany, Christmas traditions vary, but Haysville’s own Christel Cloyd, of Bergland Trachten German and Austrian Imports, can remember the traditions she enjoyed as a child in Germany. She lived in Peine, near Hanover. For St. Nicholas Day on December 6, the children put their shoes in front of the door so that St. Nicholas can put cookies in them. The Advent Calendar is hung, and for each day, the children find a picture behind the number. During Advent (the four weeks prior to the week of Christmas), the Advent wreath is placed on a stand which sits in the middle of the table. On the first Sunday of Advent, one red candle is placed on the wreath, and another one is placed for each consecutive Sunday leading up to the week before Christmas, until there are four red candles.
Next comes Christmas Eve, the Holy Evening, or Heilige Abend. The Christmas tree is picked out and chopped down. When the tree is standing inside, tinsel is hung on the tree, piece-by-piece, and candles are sometimes added, as well. Any ornaments put on the tree are homemade and created from whatever a person chooses. In Cloyd’s family, the tree was left up until January 6 of the next year. When the tree is taken down, the tinsel is removed, one strand at a time, and saved for the next year.
The “Christ Child” (Christkind) delivers the children’s presents to the foot of the tree, and they’re usually covered by a sheet or such. When supper is served, there is goose, which first has to be caught, preferably early in the season to make sure there was one available. There is also red or blue cabbage and yellow boiled potatoes. Christ Stollen, or Christmas cake and sometimes poppy seed cake, cinnamon stars, and gingerbread cookies or houses are served. The gingerbread cookies or houses aree made with homemade molasses, one for every child, and coated with sugar and chocolate. Almost everything is homemade.
“I never make anything from a box,” says Cloyd.
After supper, each child recites a poem having to do with Christmas, and everyone sings Christmas songs, such as “Silent Night” and “O Tannenbaum.” Now the children are allowed to receive their unwrapped Christmas gifts brought by Christkind. Everyone then proceeds to church for the Christmas Eve Midnight Service. A 10 a.m. Christmas Day church service follows the next morning, and this concludes the traditions in Cloyd’s region of the country. The remainder of the day is still a holiday from work, just as Christmas Eve was, and just as it is here.