When my family came to the United States from East Germany in 1906, they dedicated themselves to becoming Americans, especially my father and mother who started their own family in 1917. Through each year they put more and more of the German traditions and customs aside--except for Christmas.
My mother continued to bake her special Papanut cookies. That's what she called them using the low German dialect, the language of the folk who lived in the lowlands near the Baltic Sea in the northern Province of Mecklenburg. This is not the high German taught in the schools and used by authors in literature.
My father loved to belt out "O Tannenbaum" every day of Advent. He also joyfully decorated the Christmas tree and loved to sit and look at it in the silence of the evening. Every year he'd tell the story of how his mother baked Papanut every Christmas holiday, a ginger cut-out cookie, and hung them in a china cabinet and how he got in trouble because he ate them one day when all the family had gone to church.
He took an active part in putting the tree up, twining all the lights around, and then hanging each ornament hook by hook. He let me help him a little more each year. When the tree was loaded with every last ball and bauble, we would throw packaged icicles on all the branches for the finishing touch. Then we'd turn off all the overhead lights, run out the front door and across the street to ooh and ahh over our lighted tree which was placed right in the middle of our living room window.
But even more magical than that moment was the moment I saw Santa Claus on St. Nicholas Eve. This was a well-loved legend that had come across the pond with my family members who hung onto it until their four children had outgrown Santa. I, as the youngest, was their last chance to vicariously enjoy the innocence of childhood.
The saint for whom December 6 is named has many legends and mythology based on his life although the facts of his bio are brief and obscure. His legends have now been documented back to the Nordic pagan culture. The evolution of many myths have now been traced throughout the northern area of Europe. St. Nicholas eventually came to be known as Sinterklaaus in the Netherlands and Belgium. One can easily see how Sinterklaaus eased into Santa Claus. In fact, my father always referred to S.C. as Santy Claus which is very close to the European.
Sinterklaaus came into the United States with the Dutch settlers of New York. However, the English speakers eventually prevailed and it's been Santa Claus ever since. For more history of St. Nickolas, type it in the Search box on Wikipedia. For my personal memory, read on.
I was five years old. December 6 had been a snowy day, and when I came home from school my mother met me at the door and swept me off with the broom because I had made snow angels all the way home and my snow suit was covered with snow. She took off my boots and set them on the doorstep leading into the house.
At the supper table, my 13 year old brother started talking about Santy Claus and wasn't this the night he flew overhead and left presents in children's shoes if they had been good? My mother answered yes and then passed around dishes of Jello with sliced bananas. Suddenly, my brother jumped up and said, "Listen, I think I hear sleigh bells!"
My mother agreed and grabbed her heavy sweater that hung on the doorknob of her bedroom door. My sister, Vi, grabbed my snow suit jacket and started pushing my arms into it. Everyone was talking at once, about hearing sleigh bells. I didn't hear a thing.
We rushed out the door and down the porch steps. They started looking up in the sky and pointing. I remember seeing bright stars overhead. "Look, there's Santy Claus," my brother yelled and was jumping like he always did when he got excited. My sister knelt beside me and my mother held my shoulders from behind me. "Do you see him, Irma Rose? Do you see him?" I didn't see a thing.
But they insisted, and I wasn't one to give up even at age 5. I looked and looked, strained my eyes looking at black spaces between the stars. "Look Irma Rose, it's Santy Claus, look right up there." And my sister gently turned my head a trifle and tilted my chin upwards. And suddenly I could see him. I saw him in his sleigh gliding across the dark sky. "Can you see him?" they asked and I nodded my head, too overwhelmed to speak.
And then Santa was gone. Off to somewhere else to excite a family and bring wonder to the wee ones. We walked toward the house, and as we climbed the porch steps, my mother stopped, and said, "Look Irma Rose. There's something in your boots." I looked and there was a flat package wrapped in white tissue paper with a red ribbon around it. My sister, Vi, took it out of my boot and handed it to me. "It looks like Santy Claus must have left you a present. You must have been a good girl this year."
We walked into the house and Vi pulled my jacket off me. I sat down next to the hot air register and pulled the red ribbon off the package, and then I tore the tissue off. It was a book! It was an Uncle Wiggley book! I opened it, and started looking at the pictures. "I'll read it to you when you get ready for bed," Vi said.
And she did.
I eventually outgrew Santy Claus and the next generation of my family let the St. Nicholas legend become only a memory. But when I tell it, it becomes a story.
