Childhood memories: how Edmund Stoiber and other personalities experienced Christmas

Created: 12/25/2021, 12:00 PM

From: Andrea Kästle

Dolls for both: Ursula Fiechtner (left), now a district farmer, and her sister Maria with her gifts.

The family also sang in front of the tree.

As a precaution, however, the Fiechtners let a musical mechanism run along in order to be able to keep the melody on "Silent Night".

© Private

For each of us, Christmas is associated with memories, often from childhood too.

Here celebrities from the district tell how they experienced the festival of festivals.

Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen - At Renate Waßmer's, Mr. Papa was always off on Christmas Eve, December 24th, the family went for a walk in the afternoon, Dr.

Before she could unwrap her presents, Sybille Krafft always had to wait until her aunt arrived from Bad Reichenhall at some point late at night.

Whoever you ask about the Christmas of your childhood these days - everyone talks about simple food and rather modest gifts.

Some prominent district citizens also remember exactly that moment when they realized that there is no Christ Child.

The moment when Christmas lost its halo for them.

“I never got what I wanted”: Wolfgang Ramadan, musician, writer and cultural organizer from Icking, with model cars. He would have loved to have unpacked a guitar under the Christmas tree. © Private

, musician, writer and cultural organizer from Icking, came

to the conclusion that there could be no Christ child

: “I was about six years old, I could already read when I saw that the top sheet in the Golden Book of Nikolaus was exactly the paper with this watermark on which my mother always wrote her letters. On closer inspection it was clear to me that my mother had written on this sheet, I recognized her writing. At that moment I knew that the Christkindl didn't exist either, I was disappointed and angry. Ultimately, it was a school for life. I believe today that I don't believe in anything, that's my basic attitude.

Christmas was always turbulent for us. On the one hand, half of the relatives came on December 24th, and it was all going well, the giving of presents was a huge battle for presents. On the other hand, customs were still rustic back then. Nicholas, by the way, our neighbor, as I and my half-siblings soon knew, would put my older brother in the sack and beat him up. On some days I got a wad from my mother as a prophylactic measure, just so that I would be good. For me, family is a synonym for pain. But of course I also remember beautiful things in connection with Christmas. The fact that we children got mulled wine. With red cheeks, very warm inside, we had a snowball fight outside the church when Mette was there. We wouldn't have got any more space anywaybut we heard the people singing inside, that was nice. "

At Christmas there was always white sausages with horseradish

For the documentary filmmaker, journalist and historian

As a child, Christmas meant above all: waiting. Waiting for the Christ Child, who unfortunately was late with her every year: “I grew up without a father and without siblings, with my mother and grandma. And the two of them always wanted to celebrate Christmas Eve with their aunt. Unfortunately, she lived in Bad Reichenhall, where she had a hairdressing salon, which was usually open until 6 p.m. on December 24th. Only then could she take the train. Until she arrived in Munich, interestingly enough always at the same time as the Christ Child, which later astonished me, it was sometimes around midnight. By then I had already slept a bit, the afternoon and earlier evening I had spent the afternoon and earlier evening with my grandmother by baking cookies.

As was customary at the time, our Christmas tree was decorated with tinsel, once the cat played with it, then the Christmas tree got tilted, the curtains caught fire.

Since then we have only put electric candles on the branches.

We had veal sausages to eat on December 24th, but not, as usual, with sweet mustard, but with horseradish to celebrate the event.

Christmas without white sausages with horseradish is no Christmas for me. "

The sister "looks down at us as an angel"

District farmer

knows that there is no Christ child

who grew up in Eurasburg, learned from her sister, who is two years older than her. “I think I was in fourth or fifth grade at the time. However, that didn't throw me off the rails, I was quite strong. I already had specific ideas about what Christmas time would be like in heaven, how the angels all help with the preparations - grandma told me something like that when my parents were in the stable. As with many families, our room was locked on December 24th, a window was left open so that the Christ Child could come in and out. There was Viennese with bread rolls to eat. When my mother secretly disappeared to prepare everything, my father used to say that he was going to 'shoot the Christ Child' now. I didn't know the custom, I didn't know what that meantand of course I was afraid he might meet the Christ Child. Because he really took the air rifle and aimed at the sky, and a few times he pulled the trigger. I made a real fuss about that.

When I was five years old, my younger sister, who was only eleven months old, died just before Christmas.

That was of course a big blow to my parents, they tried to keep their grief away from us.

But that, too, is something I associate with Christmas: the pain that my sister is no longer alive.

'Now she's looking down at us as an angel', my parents consoled us on Christmas Eve. "

A bike for Josef Niedermaier.

Today's district administrator would have preferred a model railway.

His favorite cookies, which he ate "tons" in his own words, were coconut macaroons and black Maltese.

© Private

The long time of waiting became at home with

shortened for the children by the fact that grandma went for a walk with them. The district administrator, at that time still in Großdingharting, in the Munich district, remembers: “It was already dark, you could see the lights in the cemetery, that was wonderful. At home the bell was rung, which my father did behind the bedroom. Maybe when I was five or six years old I suspected that there is no such thing as the Christ Child. But even when my siblings and I were teenagers, the parents didn't give up the Christmas rituals, and that was nice too. Every year a different one of us read the gospel aloud, we always made music. I played the clarinet. We often ate fondue, sometimes with meat, sometimes with cheese. However, I never got the present that I wanted most of all: a model railway. "

“From the third grade on, I also served in the Mette”, remembers Peter Demmelmair.

The photo shows today's parish priest, framed by his brothers Paul and Franz, at Christmas in 1965. © Archive

Pastor associates security and satisfaction with Christmas

Christmas for the Tölz parish priest

was, as he says, the “experience of security and satisfaction”. The fact that at some point “a light dawned” on him and he knew that the Christ Child would not fly out of the sky could not change anything: “My parents certainly staged the whole thing. We put our wish lists for Christmas on the windowsill during the night, and at least once I got exactly what I had longed for: sliding shoes. You put it in front of your boot so you could slide down the snow-covered streets with it, that was a lot of fun. There was sausage with potato salad to eat at Christmas, and on December 25th we really cooked with goose and great, homemade potato dumplings. "

The Christ Child played in Christmas by

today CEO of Sparkasse Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen, no role: “I come from southern Baden, St. Nicholas came to us. I found out for myself that it doesn't exist, I just noticed that whenever he was there, my mother or aunt was missing. I was more relieved than disappointed. Christmas was pretty cozy for us. My father, who was a production manager in a company, was always off, and we all went for a walk in the afternoons. That was especially nice when there was snow. To eat there was Schäufele, i.e. pork shoulder, with potato and lamb's lettuce. Our tree was sometimes silver, sometimes red, mostly it had real candles and always a lot of tinsel. We probably sang too, there are photos of them, and when there were games under the Christmas tree, we tried them out straight away.Christmas was and is a wonderful, cozy family time for me. "

The father had a little chat with the Christ Child - that's why he was already in the living room

Even

, born in 1941, grew up in Oberaudorf (district of Rosenheim), at some point caught up with his parents at Christmas: “Last year I had a children's ladder cart for Christmas, and now I saw a structure under a cloth in my parents' bedroom for this wagerl.

It was then under the Christmas tree for me.

My doubts about the magic of Christmas that I had already had grew stronger.

On the other hand, as a child you absolutely want to keep this Christ Child.

The Christmas of my childhood were humble. The four or five years after the war there was still a great shortage. The fathers of half of the children had died in the war. That my mother could organize pork sausages for five people on Christmas Eve, that my father bought a pint of beer with it: That was something special. I shared an advent calendar with pictures with my two older sisters. Nicholas also came to us, he was scary at the time, he always had a Krampus with him, who rattled his chain and hit the floor.

Times were very different.

Before the Christmas presents, when we stormed into the room with the Christmas tree in the corridor upstairs on the first floor after long afternoons, there was a singing.

We all sang loudly.

My sister also played on a small grand piano.

I played the violin, but not well enough to accompany her.

It was always strange, of course, that when we got into the room, Father was already sitting there.

He then said to us that he had talked a little with the Christ Child.

Our Christmas tree was full of tinsel, and the cat made itself comfortable under it.

Of course we went to mass, on Boxing Day we were already back in church. "

Our employee Andrea Kästle put together the memories of Christmas in the days of children and young people.

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