Christmas Memories ~ by Mary Ann Allen

I'm thinking about my childhood memories this Christmas Eve night. My parents emigrated to the United States from Germany during the 1920's and they brought their lovely Bavarian Christmas traditions with them.

My earliest memories have to do with a special Christmas display that my Dad built every Christmas in our living room. Sometimes, this display covered the length of a wall; sometimes, it was placed in a corner. It was always a flat waist high stand, built of wood and filled in with hunks of slag that were shaped into mountains. Built into the mountains was a wooden stable that was the center point and the reason for the display. Below the stable was a large meadow. All the crevices in the mountains and the meadows were filled in with beautiful mosses that my Dad found in the woods out in the country. There were lights embedded all around the display.

In the stable were the Nativity figures of Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus in his crib. The Shepherd figures stood nearby; and further down in the meadow, the Three Kings could be seen travelling toward their destiny of meeting the Babe, bringing their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. On another flat area was a group of figures that represented the Last Supper. On the heights of the mountains, stood castles and fairy tale figures like Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf. ALL of these figures had been carved out of soap and painted with watercolors by my Dad. They were kept safe all year in a special case and brought out at Christmas time to populate the display. There were also other old ceramic and paper mache figures that my parents had brought from Germany. There was a bisque angel that I especially loved, that hung from the ceiling by a piece of thread.

This display was called a "Krippe" or Creche and was not only the highlight of our family's Christmas; but also became a favorite of the children in the neighborhood where I grew up. My Dad continued building this display through the 1960's so that his grandchildren could benefit from the old traditions. For a few years during the 1990's, I also built my own version of a Krippe, so that MY grandchildren could enjoy the beauty of this old German tradition. The photo accompanying this article is a closeup of one of my displays. You can see that I used rocks in place of my Dad's slag which was long gone. The moss came from the woods behind my house. The stable was made from an old piece of tree root. The soap carvings were passed down through my brother's family so I bought my own figures to populate my display. I hope that someday my grandchildren will take up the same tradition in their own families, in memory of the beauty they experienced here in my home during the Christmas season.