Sunday 19 December 2010

Christmas Eve At Aunt Johanna's - Fourth Sunday in Advent





Aunt Johanna was the pretty one, the dainty and delicate one, the one with the nicest house, the smartest clothes and the best taste in Christmas decorations. She also cried a lot. “She’s built her house too close to water”, the others used to say. When I was little I didn’t understand what they meant by that, but I often saw her cry.

Aunt Johanna’s house was different from the other aunts’ houses.  There wasn’t as much joy as at aunt Little Kate’s, who was my favourite, it was a lot less smelly than at aunt Maria’s, who lived with my other grandfather, the holy one, and a little less tidy than mum’s, but more grown-up, somehow. It was bigger too, that’s why we sometimes went there for Christmas. Mum and dad and I went there by train the day before and mum used to make fun, in a mean sort of way, of the way aunt Johanna fussed over her tree. Mum and aunt Johanna were sisters.

The most festive part of Christmas in Germany is Christmas Eve, the Silent Night, Holy Night of the carol.  In those days everything stopped after three o’clock in the afternoon; no shops, no trains, no anything at all, except for essential services. And the sailors at sea, I remember them in particular, because people would ask for music to be played for them on the radio.

I was always very excited to go to aunt Johanna’s, it was so different from anywhere else I went. Cousin Dieter and I were the same age but his two sisters were big girls, older than me, much superior in looks and understanding. Dieter was superior too, he made fun of me, but because we were the same age I could punch him. Besides, I was cleverer than him. Aunt Johanna really didn’t like that.

Most of the afternoon we spent in the kitchen. We’d missed lunch, but aunt Johanna made us wait a long time before she offered us anything to eat. I remember being quite hungry sometimes; she gave us a cup of coffee and a biscuit to tide us over but there were no other concessions to our traveling day. The last time we went there for Christmas mum had brought sandwiches for us, which we ate in aunt Johanna’s kitchen. I remember being glad of them but there did seem to be an atmosphere while mum and dad and I were eating them.

Only at Christmas was dinner served in the dining room. The living room was next to the kitchen, it was shabby and warm and uncle Hans’ big desk was in an alcove. We couldn’t go in  because he was still working and spent a lot of time in there, shouting on the telephone, which made aunt Johanna cry. “Does he have to work even today”, she sobbed.

We couldn’t go into the dining room because that was also the best parlour,  a large room running along one side of the house, the room where the Christmas tree stood. The door was firmly shut. Only over aunt Johanna’s dead body would anyone go in there before she was ready to display her annual masterpiece, her Christmas tree.

Finally, uncle Hans relented and joined us. He brought out a bottle or two and dad and he smoked and drank, mum had a glass too, but aunt Johanna refused. She had been wronged, she wasn’t ready to forgive.

We children had been amusing ourselves, staying in the kitchen or using the scullery; everywhere else in the house it was cold; it was an old house, unheated for the main part. I already dreaded the thought of the freezing bedrooms.

Little by little the atmosphere thawed and at long last it was time to open the dining room doors and pay homage to ‘the tree’. Aunt Johanna had disappeared into the room about fifteen minutes earlier, alone, but now she threw open the modest doors with a flourish. “Do come and look at the tree”, she called. We obediently obliged, we were well trained. We stood awkwardly halfway inside the dark room, which was lit only by the wax candles on the tree.

It has to be said, her tree was magnificent, a magical vision in green and silver, reaching from floor to  ceiling. Aunt Johanna only ever used silver ornaments. But what made her tree stand out from all others was the tinsel, thousand of strands of silver tinsel, the sort that is called 'lametta', each one hung on the tree separately, long and smooth and unimpeded. She must have spent hours getting it just right, adjusting and tweaking and smoothing each strand.

In the light of the white wax candles in their silver holders the whole tree came to shimmering, trembling, other-worldly life. “It’s not a very good one this year”, Aunt Johanna said proudly.

It took a long time before I could look away from the tree and notice that the long dining table was laid  for the Christmas Eve meal. Aunt Johanna had done herself proud, she had brought out the family china and silver and the best glasses which were rarely used and never normally when there were children around.

I hardly dared touch anything. By now I wasn’t even very hungry anymore. Mum looked cross; by rights, at least half of the splendour displayed on the table should have been hers, she’d said it often enough to dad and me at home.  I am not sure that she would ever have used any of it if it had been hers.

In spite of the setting the meal was a nervous one. Every so often Aunt Johanna rushed up to extinguish another candle burning too close to its holder. Gradually, the tree lost its lustre and Christmas Eve came to an end.




23 comments:

  1. I did so enjoy this, Friko. It has the authentic, unmistakable ring of truth.

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  2. 'The tree lost its lustre' ...

    I think that effect hits all of us at some point. May your lustre be undimmed, and your lametta sparkling this Christmas! :)

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  3. A wonderfully atmospheric story of Christmas Eves past. Images of Aunt Johanna and her house will stay with me almost as if I'd been there, too.

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  4. friko this story carried me right inside its life!! so very wonderful in every way - the layers of people's experiencing and then the tree and the dinner and of course the failing candles carrying the whole back to its simple self. wow. steven

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  5. I love your stories. they are so different from mine. Different times, different countries, different culture. She didn't seem very happy for having all the nicest things. My mother was like that. No matter how hard we tried, she was always disappointed some how. Finally we quit trying.

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  6. Wonderful tale, Friko. I truly felt as if I was by your side through the telling. Too bad your aunt couldn't relax and enjoy her life.

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  7. What a clear and rich story. I brings memories of moments of holidays I've had. Not all happy, but part of the weave of my life.

    I think the saddest part of holidays is the family unease, the usually unspoken rifts and long standing undercurrent of old hurts. It happens in most families, and it is like the commercialism of holidays, in that it takes away from the beauty of the holiday itself and its purpose in our lives. Thank goodness we can usually put those times on the rack at the farthest back of our minds!

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  8. My comment keeps getting chewed and vapourised!

    OK, I said I love the underlying tension to the story and how you carry Johanna's unhappiness to the reader.

    I do believe everyone's Christmas was fraught with these undercurrents.

    XO
    WWW

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  9. What vivid and detailed memories. It shows how atmospheres and feelings can imprint themselves on a child's mind. I shiver at the thought of the cold in my Gran's house - and in our own come to that. Let's hope we don't go back to that kind of austerity!

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  10. Christmas at Aunt Johanna's wasn't for the fainthearted , then . I love the very sisterly , very pointed eating of your own sandwiches ! A lot goes "unsaid" at these family gatherings but no one fails to get the point.
    Oh yes , Kerstbrood and Stollen are nearly the same . But Dutch Stollen have a lot more banketspijs in than Kerstbrood ..... eugh !

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  11. It seemed to be the culture back then to be austere and save everything for just a few times a year. I went to a great Aunt and Uncles house when I was little and he was such a miserly old man I can remember being so terrified the whole time we were there. I should try to pull together the details and write about it sometime.

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  12. I remember from our time in Germany, our neighbor invited us for Christmas dinner all 3 years we lived there. Her husband and son would come to our house and wait, and then when she called on the telephone, we would go and see the tree, glowing with candles and shining with tinsel. One year she attached sparklers to the tree as well, which was all very exciting until the strands of tinsel fused together.

    As a child, my family once visited a rich uncle of my father. He had several Picasso paintings which he showed us, but he also tried to make us uncomfortable with his shocking talk, and he made it clear that he did not like my mother. My father was out of that man's will until after his divorce and remarriage to someone else.
    (I should be clear that my mother was not a bad person at all! This uncle simply didn't like his nephew's choice. At the time, my parents had been married for about 20 years.)

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  13. I have the feeling, Christmas would have been so much happier spending it with aunt Little Kate, Friko. Have a happy blessed Christmas with Beloved. x

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  14. Ah yes, the memories of Christmas trees with real candles and lametta and the old family treasures. For me the memories are pleasant ones as my mother always went out of her way to make the day a special one. The door to the living room stayed closed until Christmas eve and my sister and I would be called in when the candles were lit. Usually my favourite aunt and her son would celebrate with us and there was music and love enough for us all.

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  15. I believe I can see that tree - or at least many like it from the past.
    Reading your post has reminded me to just let a little more go so that I spend time on the floor with the little boys. They're busy making their memories and I want them to be happy ones.

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  16. Fantastic story about family Christmas. There's nothing better or worse.

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  17. I remember well those best rooms and chilly rooms. You paint a wonderful word picture of the tree and festivities of Christmas Eve.

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  18. What an interesting Christmas memory. It does not give a warm fuzzy feeling though. My mother was an only child, so no aunts or uncle and my father had only one sister living in Cairo, Egypt. All our Christmas celebrations were in our apartment in Paris and my grandparents and grand aunt and uncle came, but it was always on Christmas day. I was the only child in the family – so no other children to play or fight with but since I never had them I did not miss them. I never saw a pine tree with candles either, it must have been something to see. I enjoy your recollections, Friko.

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  19. A wonderful telling -- rich with detail! (My mother hung tinsel like that -- never allowing anyone less precise. And it does make a beautiful effect.)

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  20. Told with heart and honesty! My son came home from school (away for the first time this year) and I said being home must be driving him a bit crazy, what with a bit of bickering going on between his five siblings and the loudness of the house. He laughed and said, "Yes, but I love my family". That went to my heart and still makes me tear up. I can honestly say that no present will top that this year.

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  21. Fantastic piece, Friko. "I already dreaded the thought of the freezing bedrooms." Ah yes, laying in bed, watching your breath swirl in the moonlight, knowing that there would be ice on the inside of the windows by morning.

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  22. I wonder if the people in your life were even partially aware of the incredibly powerful eye (not to mention, as it turns out, the memory) of the little girl in their midst. Putting it into words that have the ring of truth is the Christmas pudding. Thank you for sharing this.

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  23. Wonderful telling of a bittersweet memory. Really makes one feel sorry for Aunt Johanna

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