For the Love of Christmas (6 page)

Christmas in Germany: The Naked Truth

By Lori Hein

S
anta's a cool guy, and if you ask him to bring your kids' presents a few days early so you can fly to Europe and experience Christmas in Germany, he delivers. Three hours after Dana and Adam opened their gifts and marveled that Santa would make a special trip to Boston just for them, we were headed to the airport and our flight to Frankfurt.

Ah, what a Christmas! Eating cheese-fondued potatoes in Feuchtwangen and sugarcoated snowball cookies in Rothenburg. Sipping mugs of mulled wine while walking cobbled Dinkelsbuehl. Singing “Stille Nacht” in a great stone church, strolling outdoor Christmas markets, and browsing festive ornament shops in Heidelberg and ­Wiesbaden. And in Würzburg, the first town on our itinerary, we experienced German spa life, which includes lots of dunking. And nudity.

Our Würzburg hotel had a Schwimmbad—a swim and fitness center—and we couldn't wait to drop our bags and get down there. As we signed in with the girl at the reception desk, I looked through the window behind her at the pool, a sumptuous haven with a waterfall and tropical plants, some dressed for the season in colored holiday lights. Behind one of them stood a buck-naked old man.

I turned to the kids and reminded them—they'd seen topless women on Mediterranean beaches since they were toddlers—that people do things differently in Europe: “You might see a bare body or two in the pool.”

My husband, Mike, had a cold and wasn't swimming. He claimed a lounge chair and promptly fell asleep. The kids and I found the single dressing room, a unisex affair. Oblivious to the preponderant nakedness, eleven-year-old Adam climbed into his board shorts and eight-year-old Dana into her neon-pink suit festooned with 101 Dalmatians. Wary, but hopeful we'd simply stumbled into the locker room during a naturist group's annual Christmas get-together, I pulled on my suit and led the kids to the pool.

As the warm water and exercise got our juices flowing, our senses sharpened and we all saw what we'd jumped into. You could have knocked me over with a Speedo when I realized that we three wore the only bathing suits in the whole cedar-planked place.

Taking it in stride, we watched our fellow bathers do “the circuit.” They burst from the pool, then ambled, flesh flapping, from sauna to steam to tanning bed to Frischluft, or fresh air, an outdoor concrete courtyard with paintings of palm trees, where they sat chatting in fifteen-degrees Fahrenheit in nothing but their Geburtstag suits. We caught the hang of the circuit and began to participate in the series of refreshing events.

And that's when we got into trouble.

One man had deputized himself as the pool police and watched our every clothed move. As we'd soon learn, we'd violated the shower-between-events protocol. The enforcer, sometimes swathed in a red and white-striped robe that made him look like a terrycloth candy cane, reported us to the girl at the reception desk who chastised us. After the dressing down, we gave up doing the circuit because all those mandatory showers took too much effort.

Instead, we swam some more, then went to the sauna to cap off our visit. And there awaited the Schwimmbad ­sheriff again. When we sat down, he got up and headed for the front desk. A minute later the receptionist tracked me down and said there “had been complaints” that we hadn't sat on towels while in the sauna.

My tired brain, still operating on eastern standard time, called up the best German it could muster, and I delivered a rough equivalent of, “You're kidding! We're wearing clothes! We're the hygienic ones! Please tell peppermint-robe-guy that, in the spirit of Christmas, he should keep his parts and his opinions to himself!” (I was pleased with this sudden burst of fluency. Evidently jet lag lets you speak in tongues.) The receptionist apologized and invited the kids to help themselves to a bowl of oranges at the counter.

We woke Mike, still dreaming deeply in his chaise. He'd been oblivious to the naked people lounging and walking near him, and he'd missed the drama. Through it all he'd dozed, the most clothed person this pool had ever seen, his head cold seeking solace beneath long pants, a turtleneck shirt, and a sweater.

But he was barefoot.

“Where are your shoes?” I asked.

“Over there. Some guy in a candy cane robe ordered me to take them off.”

Christmas Blues

By Kathe Campbell

M
arried children often juggle parents at Christmas.

I call it the every-other-holiday syndrome. Wife's parents on odd years; husband's family on even years. Simple—until unforeseen circumstances found this unsuspecting mom and pop facing a lonely Christmas for the first time. We were not looking forward to the holidays.

We can handle it; we're grownups and we understand. It's okay,
we kept reminding ourselves. Okay, that is, until our golden retriever collapsed under a massive seizure that forced us to say good-bye to our beloved lady. We were heartsick over the loss of Nikki.

Oh, dear God, I lamented, why at Christmastime?
I cried buckets while Ken labored to keep his macho image intact. Finally, he let go and it was a dreadful scene.

A week later, severe arthritis and profound loneliness for Nikki rendered our fifteen-year-old border collie withdrawn, incontinent, and unable to walk. Ginger was what we mountain folks call a dump-off, and we had gladly adopted this sweet and loyal herder. The excruciating final trip to the veterinarian was nearly more than we could ­handle.

Was celebration of our Lord's birth taking a backseat to our losses?

The morning of Christmas Eve, Ken popped out of bed full of oats and vinegar. I, on the other hand, was still caught up in gloom over beloved dogs and slightly miffed at his attitude.

“I'll be back in a while, dear,” he shouted on his way out the door.

The rising sun's pink radiance surfaced the top of our mountain, but our house was deathly still. I stood at the window, pulling myself together and yearning for the holiday-charged din of impatient grandchildren around me.

At noon, Ken returned through the front gate and opened the truck door. Out flew a great tri­colored mass of fur.

What on earth?

The ten-month-old keeshond, a Dutch barge dog from the humane shelter, raced through the snow into my ­outstretched arms. As if we had been bosom buddies forever, we fell over in a joyous heap of emotion, this medium-sized, wiggle-tailed bundle of yips and slurps. “She was the sorriest-looking pup in the place,” Ken admitted, “with her brown eyes pleading, ‘Please Mister, take me home with you.'” Obviously, Ken was smitten, too.

Villous curly tail dancing a jig atop her back, Keesha snuffled out all the interesting scents on our ranch. She rolled and played in the snow, acquainted herself with kitties, donkeys, ducks, and geese. Thankfully, she had no desire to chase, bite, or torment. She was a keeper.

We took the pup to town for a lovely Christmas Eve dinner (Keesha's came packaged as a doggy box) and then to the pet shop for toys and collar. But Keesha readily averted her nose from silly toys. That night, the thoroughly content, tousle-haired pup held down our big feather bed as we watched yuletide television services between our toes.

Christmas morning arrived with our voices ringing joyful anticipations of the day during phone calls from excited grandchildren across the miles. Instead of hanging around pretending we weren't sadly devoid of family, Ken and I grabbed our new pup and headed for the Salvation Army Church headquarters.

Captain Miss B. welcomed all three of us as I set out table decorations and Ken knuckled down to peel spuds. Frightened she might be abandoned again, Keesha sat as quietly as a mouse in the vestibule, eyeing us with trepidation while Miss B's schnauzer jumped in circles.

More volunteers arrived to serve ham and turkey dinners in an overflowing dining room, a place where humble families and destitute homeless dined in the shadow of Jesus's house. A place where both Ken and I rose above our holiday blues, savoring the meaning of the day as never before.

That night we three wearily returned through our front gate to the echoes of waterfowl and hee-haws lamenting their belated holiday fare. But it was a good tired, our most blessed Christmas ever. Family, we had discovered, could be created.

From both man and beast.

The Tree That Ryma Built

By Ryma Shohami

I
was almost five the year my father brought home a fragile Christmas tree ornament. The crimson, snow-roofed Hansel and Gretel cottage proved so irresistible, I almost broke it before it had a chance to make its debut. After that, my hands remained firmly clasped behind my back whenever I was in the vicinity of the tree.

Two years later, in 1957, we emigrated to Poland. We left the Soviet Union, where my father had fled at age sixteen, slightly ahead of the German army that annihilated his village. Now the Soviet authorities finally granted his request to return to his homeland, although our ultimate goal was Canada, where my grandfather had gone before the war to earn money and bring his family to safety. Unfortunately, he had run out of time; my father had been his only child to survive in Grandfather's absence.

Luckily, Poland was providing those with immediate family abroad a brief window of opportunity for emigration. So, while my grandfather was frantically processing our visas, we lived in limbo.

I, of course, was oblivious to our tenuous position. I barely noticed the hushed whispering between my parents; grown-ups were always whispering secrets behind kids' backs. All I knew was that the New Year was fast approaching and no one had yet brought home a tree.

How could I suspect that Christmas tree ornaments were the last thing on my parents' minds?

When I could wait no longer, I nagged my older brother.

“We're not allowed to have a tree anymore,” he informed me.

“You're lying,” I accused hotly. “We always have a tree!”

“Well, that was Russia, this is Poland, and we can't have a tree. You're so dumb, Ryma. Don't you know Jews aren't allowed to have trees?” he taunted.

What was he talking about? What were Jews? And why couldn't Father Frost come to Poland? My head swirled with all this new information.

Sobbing, I sought reassurance from my parents that the tree would be erected as usual, with its shimmering silver star and the tempting Hansel and Gretel cottage. My father gently explained that in Russia the tree was part of the winter New Year celebrations, just a fun holiday for children, but that everywhere else it symbolized Christmas, a holiday for people who were Christians. We were indeed Jewish and Christmas was not our holiday.

He omitted telling me that in Communist Russia, not having a “New Year” tree would have branded us as Jews, and so we had joined in the festivities.

“But as soon as we're safely in Canada,” my mother added, “we'll celebrate our own holidays.”

I listened intently, but all I heard was betrayal:
There would be no tree.
I didn't want new holidays; I wanted my tree. I wanted my little house ornament! I was inconsolable.

Refusing to accept their pronouncements, I pocketed the few coins I possessed and went shopping for a tree. The filthy streets were usually overrun by rats, but I had a mission and I would not be intimidated or deterred.

There had been no snow for weeks and the world was a slate gray. The wind whipped me around as I struggled to reach the lot where I had seen our neighbors buying trees. Cold stung my face, adding injury to serious insult.

The lot displayed two leftover scraggly pines, but I didn't care. Any tree would do. Unfortunately, my paltry sum was not enough for even those pathetic specimens.

Hunched with misery, I trudged home. Too proud to be caught crying like a baby, I struggled with the tears scorching my cheeks, pretending they were the result of the dust the wind whipped up.

A block from home, I suddenly noticed that the sidewalks were littered with branches that had broken off the lush trees people had dragged along. I dashed around collecting all the branches I could carry. If I couldn't buy a tree, I would build one!

Staggering under the weight of my accumulation, I finally managed to tumble into the house, where I immediately set about tying together branches into the shape of a tree.

My father scolded, but my mother silenced him with a look and watched with amusement as I cobbled together something whose resemblance to a tree was purely accidental. With ingenuity and my brother's help, I finally succeeded in propping up the bizarre structure.

Next, I crafted a paper star and attached it to the peak. A few smaller versions filled in more spaces, while my red hair ribbons added much-needed festive color to the remaining twigs. Thrilled with my creation, I nevertheless ached for the one ornament that would have completed it.

“Isn't something missing, Ryma?” my mother whispered.

And there was the familiar red house dangling from her finger. She held out the toy and inclined her head toward the tree. I hesitated and glanced at my father. He scowled in disapproval.

“I couldn't just leave it behind,” my mother protested.

After what seemed like aeons, my father threw up his hands in exasperated surrender. “I don't want to hear about this once we're in Canada,” he warned.

“Go ahead,” my mother urged me.

With trembling fingers, I hung the little cottage in its usual place of honor. I had my centerpiece. The tree was now perfect.

In the ensuing years, I have come to appreciate and love the meaningful traditions of the Jewish holidays my family now celebrates. Hanukkah is my favorite. Lighting candles every evening for eight days encourages introspection, while the joyous songs and games provide an opportunity for familial closeness.

But there's another reason I so love this festival of lights—it just happens to fall near Christmas.