Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1876 — Christmas in Germany. [ARTICLE]

Christmas in Germany.

Father Christmas is not only a mighty revealer of actualities, as far as matters pschyical are concerned, but a resolute dispeller of popular delusions to boot. I was brought up to believe my own country-folk the most common-sensible people in Christendomn-the Germans the most imaginative and dreamy. Christmas discloses the Englishman to me as a highly sentimental being, and the Teuton as a very incarnation of the practical. With both alike, Christmas, is pre-eminently a present-giving tittie; but the German utilizes it in a far more practical way than does the Englishman, All the members of German families capable of articulation interchange presents on Christmas Eve — that is, everybody gives everybody else something, the incumbency in this respect of the heads of families being, of course, altogether out of proportion to that of the junior branches, and, indeed, constituting a formidable item in the budget of annual expenditure. But they give one another useful things, as a rule—things that they respectively want, and would be obliged to have were there no such (anniversary as Christmas inscribed upon the calendar. Papas give their grown-up daughters woolen stockings, muffs, warm petticoats, and such like; mammas bestow upon their boys comforters, neckties, lined gloves, maps; a favorite girl gets a smart bonnet; a pet lad, a comfortable overcoat. There is, of course, a sprinkling of toys, and in wealthier families of ornaments and bijouterie; buttlie bulk of the gifts is conspicuously, obstrusively, unmistakably useful, and belongs to the category of necessary provisions rather than to that of presents, Neither is there any halo of surprise surrounding them, for the begifted ones in protpeclu know full well be forehand what they are going to receive. Borne days before the holidays set in the children of the family are instructed to prepare Wunschtettet, or “Wish-memo-randa’’—slips of paper upon which are described the articles that they particularly desire to become possessed of. These are handed in to the Chief financial authority of the house, who proceeds to sit upon them in a private committee of ways and means, sketches out his estimates, and does what he can to meet the demands made upon him. In nine cases out of ten —for the Germans are extremely kind to their children, and the children, on their

pur— A—*■ y—aibilities—the hopes that find expression in the WwiscAsatst are duly realized; so that the child approaches the WeihnacJUetMch, upon which all the family mutual gift* are disposed in festive array, with feelings of agreeable anticipation, truly, but from which the bloom of unexpectedness has been dusted to the very atom. The whole thing is an open secret, a conundrum with the answer already printed, a dynastic conspiracy to which all the members of the reigning family belong, whilst its most active and important agent is the monarch himself. Il gives occasion, however, to a charming display of affection and good feeling, and is the cause or provocator of much simple and genuine mirth. Father Christmas is a good and benignant necromancer; he casts spells in such a sort as to banish temporarily much that is disagreeable and exhibit all that is most pleasant in German character. The stiffness, pedantry and dogmatism that impress the foreigner so unfavorably in this country, if he mix much with its native inhabitants, vanish for the nonce, and a certain naivete and childlike facility of humor which underlie the German disposition, but are too frequently hidden out of sight under accumulations of learning, positivism, official morgue, military exclusiveness and self-appreciation, peep cheerily out and back tn the rays of the countless tapers that adorn ana illuminate the Christmas table. Ab such moments educated Germans are, to those whom they reckon among their intimate friends—and you must be upon exceptional terms, indeed, of intimacy with a North German family to be invited to his Christmas Eve “ Bescherung”—delightful company. I have epjoyed the privilege, during my long residence in the fatherland, of being present at more than one of their festivities, and of contemplating with mingled admiration the profusion of the presents and reverencefor the amazing practicality of mind evinced in their selection, the gifts that change hands within the penetralia of a German household UDOn these

occasions. No one is forgotten. All the servants are “begifted” with judicial impartiality. They more than expect their share in the evening’s distribution. IJpon their engagement they inquire whether the custom of “ donating” at Christmastide obtain or not in the family they are about to enter and make the reply to their question a consideration in their stipulations with respeetto wages. Aprons come to them, shawls, warm underclothing, collars and cuffs, if they be of the female persuasion ; cheap cigars, hosiery, cravats, hard thalers, if they belong to the inferior sex. As practical as their mastersand mistresses, they appraise die articles bestowed upon them with aamirable/bromptness and accuracy; and gaugC/tne/profundity of the estimation in which they are held by their employers so exactly that they are seldom out in their reckoning by the thickness of a two-groschen piece. All their gifts, moreover, are set out on the table as well as those of their social betters, and they are not only present at the first revelation of all its treasures, but are free to meander around it, more or less, throughout the entire evening. All this imparts a patriarchal and humane flavor to the celebration, which bears striking witness to German native kindliness, and is all the more refreshing to the foreigner permitted to contemplate it, because in no country of Europe are class and station distinctions, in many vital respects, so sternly and persistently defined and observed as in Germany. Thus is Christmas Eve feted in all North German houses, with great trouble, Itibor and expense to their proprietors; to none probably more so than to the venerable Emperor and Empress, who personally superintend the “ Bescherung” of all their immediate dependents and attendants, as well as of hundreds of poor widows, orphans and other objects of charity, not to mention the members of their own numerous family. .The Empress herself “ builds”-—as the simple German idiom hath it —the Christmas-tree for her bed-chamber-women, etc., in the upper .apartments of the palace; with her august husband she distributes the presents annually offered by their Majesties to the officers and ladies of the household, i The Emperor goes down to the royal stables where a giant tree is prepared and heavily laden with gifts for his grooms, coachmen, postilions, stablemen, training-boys, etc., and enhances each present with a kindly word or smile. No one is forgotten in the huge imperial establishment; and, as in the smallest private family, every one gets what he or she wante. —Berlin Cor. London Daily Telegraph.