From Johann Sebastian Bach to John Lennon, from St. Luke to Charles Dickens to your local preacher, many have tried to capture the spirit of Christmas. I quail at the task. Instead, let me tell you a true story that somehow captures the season’s love.
The wind, howling from the heights of the Rockies, lashed tiny snow tornados across the moon-silvered Depression-era prairie. Half a lifetime later, the young man staring into the night would be short and plump, with a fringe of snow-white hair crowning twinkling eyes and a merry smile seeking the next excuse to laugh; but in that frozen hell, laughter seemed ashes of some spiteful dream.
In the pale midnight, the window’s frost-etched spires shimmered on the edge of memory’s horizon, drawing him homeward to the troubled Germany he had left far behind, to Dresden and its cathedral where all would soon be ready for Christmas Eve, the bishop scolding acolytes, the choir rehearsing, in the granite hymn where he had committed his life to God and wed his lovely Gretje.
The following spring Gregor had been born and two years later Elzbeth. Never was a day too busy to visit the sick, to nourish those hungry of spirit, to bless the children. Christmas Eve was best, when he taught the joyous lesson and raised his voice in the marvelous music. Too proud, we were all too proud, thought the young man, watching the wind-whipped snow billow.
Pride’s fall was a summons to the bishop in Dresden. The Lutheran flock had scattered and the church must follow, he was told. A request from—the bishop fumbled for his spectacles—Sassachkason. In Kanada. There have been meetings and you will go to serve this congregation in Kassassachoon.
The bright little pastor was thunderstruck. In Kanada? In some place even the bishop could not pronounce? His Gretje and Gregor and Elzbeth in some frozen fort encircled by Indians? He prayed for hours until, wearied, he raised his eyes to stained-glass symphonies and saw the cathedral as it had been the day a boy had chosen his path. “Like God Himself was tapping me on the shoulder,” he chuckled years later. Kanada! He would follow the call to those who waited in that savage land.
Their first Canadian Christmas Eve was blessed with new friends, hardy Germans who had built farms and the white church whose spire was topped only by the grain elevator beside the railroad track. Ernst told the beloved story while a blizzard howled outside, recalling the joys of home so far away, so long ago for many who listened. When they rose to sing the old hymns, tears coursed unashamedly down the cheeks of both women and men.
At midnight, Gretje, Gregor, Elzbeth and Ernst shared the gifts brought from Germany and laughed at the snow shovel that had been a gift from the congregation.
The new year dawned with rising hope, but as winter faded the dust winds blew and the little rain showers were tears of sadness to men who dared to farm this brutal desert. Some left for lumber camps in the Rockies or rumoured oil fields in Texas. Some simply disappeared, leaving land, homes and, sometimes, families behind. Others arrived, silently seeking a job, a meal, a drink.
The following years, Gretje knitted socks or mittens during the fall evenings while Ernst traveled the concession roads, visiting his flock across the prairie. The Hudson’s Bay manager’s wife found an extra bonnet or boots for Elzbeth, and Gregor’s gift was worn skates outgrown by a neighbour’s boy or a dog-eared book from the school teacher. The man who sold Christmas trees always had one too small for anyone to buy and reluctantly accepted the nickel Gretje pressed upon him.
As his only gift, Ernst gathered his family and told them of Christmas in Dresden. He spoke, as he nearly always did, in German, for the angular rhythms of English clattered uneasily on his lips.
‘Twas the night before Christmas Eve and God’s disdain had been cast across the brooding Canadian prairie for the best part of a decade. Embers muttered in the potbellied stove and Ernst turned to his wife asleep on their cot. How far he had brought her from her gentle girlhood and early dreams. In the next room Gregor and Elzbeth lay tangled in the bunk the carpenter had made for them.
He had found a hockey stick for Gregor, cast aside by a battered team of semi-pros with a roll of tape to cover the splinters. A shipment of hymnals from Dresden had yielded an enchanting book of church heroines for Elzbeth.
But for Gretje, he had nothing. With a heavy sigh, he blew out the candle, sank to his knees in prayer, and crawled into bed. And sometime during the night, as the wind snarled through the steeple next door, Ernst thought of an idea. A gift. A gift for Gretje.
When he awoke, Gretje was cooking oatmeal for breakfast. Ernst dressed in his heavy parka and winter cap and turned at the door to kiss Gretje’s cheek.
“I am going today to Regina,” he announced.
“Regina?” Gretje exclaimed. “You cannot go to Regina. It is Christmas Eve.”
“It is, it is church business. Yes, a meeting of ministers of the church. But I will be back in good time.”
Ernst slogged through the snow to the church. In his office, he unlocked his desk and carefully withdrew a sealed envelope and read for the thousandth time the note in German scribbled upon it.
“To be used in God’s work.”
It was, Ernst knew, from the father of a boy stricken by scarlet fever the previous winter. Ernst had searched for the overworked doctor and raced across the prairie to pray for three days until the lad was out of danger. From the envelope fell two one dollar bills.
Would God consider it His work to provide a gift for Gretje? One single gift in four Christmases? Ernst had wrestled with that question through the night and, at last, had decided that he thought it was God’s work. What God thought it to be, Ernst was sure he would learn one day.
The sun neared the peak of its tentative parabola by the time Regina’s outskirts embraced his muttering old car. A fuming bus honked angrily as he groped for meanings of the unfamiliar English signs.
At last, he arduously jockeyed the roadster into a snow bank space and joined jostling shoppers eyeing windows of gifts, stretching pennies, grateful to spare a few for the soulful faces shivering on the road from nowhere to anywhere on Christmas Eve, beneath the marquee of Regina’s biggest, brightest department store. Its name? As well to ask where the wise man bought the myrrh.
Eyes wide, he paced the bustling aisles, nodding at clerks’ greetings he hardly understood, fearful he would not find a gift for the dollars clutched in his pocket. Entranced, he stopped at a counter sparkling with reflections from vials of mysterious scents and perfumes. But which one? The young lady looked at her watch as he touched one tiny bottle, then another and another, in a panic of indecision.
“Gift for a friend, mister?” she yawned.
“Ja. Ja. Bitte, a gift. For, for Christmas,” Ernst nodded.
And then he saw it. The brightest, most beautiful bottle, carved diamonds of refracted greens and blues, with a scroll of golden letters. It must surely be the most wonderful gift for his Gretje.
“Zat one.” He pointed through the counter’s glass. “How much, fraulein?”
Please, let it not be too expensive.
“Dollar seventy five,” said the girl.
“Ja, ja. I take it,” Ernst nodded eagerly, eyes shining with delight.
“If ya like, I’ll wrap it for you. It’s only a quarter more.”
“Wrap?” puzzled Ernst.
“Yeah, in Christmas paper. Ya like this red paper?”
“Ach, ja. Ja. Wrap, bitte.”
He watched her fold the sparkling paper covered with jolly Kris Kringles around the magic diamond of wonder and spin a bow of green ribbon.
“That’ll be two bucks, Mister,” she said, handing him Gretje’s gift.
“Ja, here.” He thrust the crumpled bills across the counter. “And, fraulein, Merry Christmas.” He tipped his cap and she smiled.
“And Merry Christmas to you, sir.”
He found the highway as blue shadows crawled across the endless fields. He caressed the marvelous gift and began to rehearse the evening service, recalling Luke’s ageless story. At home, in Germany, friends were gathering in Gretje’s father’s home, children laughing, spice scents wafting. Tears stung his eyes and he raised his voice in song.
Outside the church, the men kicked idly at packed snow, puffs of vapour punctuation as they talked, the children calming when mothers called sternly, then scattering and tumbling again. Worry lined Gretje’s face as Ernst stamped into the house, rushing to don the black suit and royal purple blouse reserved for major events on the church calendar. He shooed her off to play piano preludes while he washed and shaved.
A moment’s reverie before the little tree in a kitchen corner, and he laid beneath it the children’s gifts hidden on a closet shelf. He placed the gift for Gretje carefully under the other packages.
Every pew in the church was filled. The service never failed to touch hearts with memories of a home most would never again see mingling with the eternal story of the child’s birth. Voices rose in bittersweet music through the still Saskatchewan night to, surely, the very ears of God.
At last, the final hand was shaken and the final family sent merrily into the night. Gathered around the tree, Ernst, Gretje, Gregor and Elzbeth prayed as always before the gifts were opened. Gregor pretended not to have noticed the hockey stick the instant he entered the room, and gave a cry of delight when his father handed it to him. Elzbeth gazed enraptured at her book and all kissed Gretje for her socks and scarves and mittens.
The gift for Gretje still lay beneath the tree. Ernst solemnly handed it to her, his eyes shining with pleasure and love. Never before in this new land had he been blessed to offer his family Christmas gifts and the children hung on the arms of Gretje’s chair, exclaiming as the red tinsel paper fell aside and diamonds of green and blue twinkled in the tree’s candlelight. Gretje gasped at its beauty. Ernst gently turned her face up to his and saw her warm tears of love.
The children tucked into their bed, Ernst and Gretje sat, hand in hand, watching the tree until the candles burned down. And it was their best Christmas in the new land.
The next year, a breath of hope drifted across Saskatchewan and the harvest was, if not bountiful, ample for their needs, evidence perhaps that God had heard their prayers. In the bustle of church life in a hard land, Gretje never found quite the occasion to unseal that twinkling bottle, for celebrations were few as newspapers and letters from home told of tensions gripping Europe. Ernst’s little congregation waited in fear of the war that, of course, came and tore generation from generation as sons marched under a Canadian flag to fight on the soil of their parents’ birth. Gretje thanked God that Gregor was too young for war and Ernst prayed with other parents when the dry letters arrived with news of sons who would be, forever, young.
The years flew quickly and Ernst was called to serve in a large city in the Canadian east. The children grew and Ernst and Gretje set them free with a prayer for their safety.
Life had smiled on the young man and his bride who traveled so far and trusted in God. Their warm home near the church welcomed the new friendships of their loving congregation.
At Christmas, the brightest memory was always of Sas-kat-chew-wan and the gift for Gretje. Each year, Ernst’s fevered drive became a little longer and a little colder, and Gretje’s delight a little more ravishing.
It was a good memory. Of love. Of joy. Of all that Christmas was meant to be.
Sometimes late on a Christmas Eve, when the grandchildren were asleep and Ernst nodded over a final schnapps, Gretje shyly, eyes glowing, whispered her secret to a special friend in the kitchen.
But she never told Ernst that she still kept that precious treasure, diamonds sparkling when she removed it from her private cedar chest and unfolded the red paper to reveal the loving gift. The best of gifts, that bright and shining, forever sealed, little bottle.
Of aftershave lotion.
