An Unabashedly Romantic Person

which is what I was, am and always will be at Christmas Time.
I don't care at all what you all think.

You may be the Scrooge of all Scrooges.
Who runs from the piped music at malls with those Santas hohoho - ing all the way!
Whatever.
I don't care.

I love Christmas. 
I love to wrap gifts, hand made if possible - although no longer as nimble and it all takes longer. Or brought back from travels when at a store a thing just cried out "This is just perfect for soandso"!  :-)! Or so I think.
May not always be the case.  But I did get it specifically with YOU in mind!
So you better like it, or pretend to, or else!  :-)!

I love the smell, sounds and looks of Christmas. 
Really and truly!
So if you see me driving singing full throated, just be happy for this superannuated child who just loves Christmas.
Ho Ho Ho.

Love the memories I carry from an earlier, simpler even if harsher time.
Remembering the time of Advent with songs still in my head such as
Leise reiselt der Schnee..

Advent Wreaths with 4 candles, 4 red and 1 white to anticipate Christmas. Adventskalender to open every day and bring Christmas closer some with sweet chocolates behind the windows.

Christkindlmarket in the deep snow like this one (could be the one I went to).

Deep snow features in all my recollections, if it really snowed all those years or not -  in December and on Christmas Eve.

Maronis to warm cold hands, sold in the streets.

Every Thursday (why Thursday? don' t know) we sat around the table making ornaments,  strawstars, ,

wrapping candies, tying strings to Windbaeckerei and other home baked goodies to hang on the tree.

Everyone in my family is known for a speciality ... and gifts made of that.

Small but handmade ones.

Oma K and her home brewed POWIDL.

Tante H from Germany, the Zuckerwurst Tante, making sausages and much more from Marzipan herself .

Tante M tatting delicate things around wispy handkerchiefs, collars and more

And Mutti handpainting scarves, keepsake boxes, or embroidering belts for friends, family and clients, in which case she made sure they matched the dresses she designed for them.

Just a year ago, the one she made for me in my favorites colors of lilac, purple, mauve with flowers disintegrated, finally. Alas.

Good Bye Lilacs, Pansies,

Violets, Akelei

and more purple flowers

and the delicate sprig of snowdrops which looked kinda startled to find themselves among those purples ;-)!

The colors faded, the lacquer dulled, and finally the humidity took its toll on the thin veneer wood box and it fell apart in my hands. The keepsakes inside I saved, but no more box.

And the tree chosen specifically for its wide spread branches so as to safely clip on real candles and Sternspucker was bought on the last weekend before Christmas Eve. And decorated on Christmas eve by Mutti while Papa and I went to collect Oma and Opa and walked through snow (here again it is always snowing in my recollections) across the square in front of our building. Seeing the candles spring to life inside our apartment, I would cry out in pure joy

"Das Christkindl ist schon da".. of course only until I was old enough to know better that Christkindl equals Mother!

Ah, bah! Letters to Christkindl always brought some wanted little gifts - among the more needed items such as socks, mitts and hats.

BTW, Santa Claus, Knecht Ruprecht was NOT the one one wrote letters with wish lists to, it was always the Christkindl.

Santa Claus, modelled after Saint Nikolaus appeared on December 5th and 6th, in company of the Krampus. And yes, some gifts were handed over .. such as an orange for the well behaved ones, or a piece of coal for the bad girls and boys! LOL!

A blood orange form Spain. The peel was carefully removed and dried for zest by Oma!

Such memories evoked by blood oranges which do buy once in a while...if I can find them. Strange how the taste of blood orange of those bygone days is not the same as one bought here and now!

As I do buy Maronis, to bake in the stove, not on an open fire.

Even if they sure don't taste quite like the ones bought in the streets of Vienna on cold days of snow ;-)!

Usually our tree was the very top of a Nobel Fir which then was placed on the big table and if one side was NOT perfect - well, it was pushed toward the wall - as long as all those edible decorations were handily reached from the easy chairs placed below. In which to cuddle up, reading a  NEW book, plucking a wrapped candy from time to time leaving the candy wrap tops still dangling as half a decoration (tee hee) or Gebaeck, while waiting for Midnight Mass to start. 

And we could not miss that. The bells of the Rudolfsheimer Church rang loudly enough across the square, every quarter of the hours day and night as I was growing up! And so we bundled up and stomped through the snow and up the long flight of steps.. it always seem to be snowing when I remember Midnight Mass on Christmas eve!

And there is THE one song that brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it,

and every time I see this in my mind - covered in snow, of course - BTW that church you see on the right is 'our' Rudolfsheimer Kirche, we lived across from it.

So I do get weepy and touchy feely! 

But I do love Christmas.. as if you hadn't gotten the idea yet!

LoL!