English translation of my Christmas story

 This is the English translation of my Christmas story.  The translation has been provided by DeepL.com.

Our childhood memories have beautiful images of Christmas because we semi-consciously select and omit or add things that fit. That's why the stories in our memories are so beautiful, not always accurate in the facts, but they contain truth because it's us.  We ourselves tell and we ourselves remember what is true.

In my home town of Korbach in northern Hesse - a district town with a population of 24,000 - we have two beautiful Gothic churches from the 15th century.

The largest of the two is St. Kilian's Church in the old town. From my parents' house, we could always see the church tower about 750 meters away.  It is a mighty-looking tower, which should actually be tapered in height.  When it was built in the late Middle Ages, it was one of the 15 tallest church towers in the world at just under 100 meters.  But the tower was destroyed 300 years ago as a result of lightning strikes.  It was rebuilt and given a typical baroque cap.  This is why it still looks so mighty today. 

The special feature is a gallery outside below the baroque cap, from where you have a great view of the whole city.  This gallery is important for my story.

 

For us children, however, there was another special feature.  Among the numerous stone figures that decorate the outside of the church building and refer to biblical themes, there are two figures at the end of the roof, where you would normally find hideous gargoyles.  In our church, it is the laughing man and the owl man who are squatting under the gutter. 

The Heulemännchen was installed during the construction phase of the church when the townspeople ran out of money to continue building.  The laughing man was added when the lack of money was over and the building could be completed.

Howling, i.e. crying and laughing, often go hand in hand with children. We knew that, it was realistic, we liked it.

And the laughing man has money, we liked that best.

But now I finally want to get to my Christmas story.

It was one Christmas Eve in the early 1960s when my parents walked to church with us three children.  It had snowed, there were hardly any cars on the road and the sounds of the city were muffled. The ringing of the church bells gave our 15-minute walk something festive. Candle lights could be seen in the windows of many houses, set up as a reminder that Germany was divided into three parts and many families were unable to come together.

After the service, we experienced the most beautiful Christmas atmosphere.  It had stopped snowing and a thick white carpet of snow was spread over the city.  And the chorale "This is the day that God has made" rang out from the tower.

It was the old custom of weighing the Christ Child, which we experienced and which takes place every year on the tower of St. Kilian's Church.

In his text on the town's history, town historian Osterhold writes:

"Legend has it that there used to be a terrible plague in Korbach, from which many Korbach residents died. As the hospital had long been overcrowded, the sick were also housed in St. Kilian's Church. A church service, let alone a Christmas celebration, was out of the question with all the sick and infirm. (...) A young man from Korbach had an idea. If they couldn't hold Christmas mass in the church, they could simply honor the Christ Child on the tower. So on Christmas Eve, young boys and men climbed the tower with lanterns and torches, swung them up and down like a cradle and praised God with their singing."

And my story, how does it end?  That's easy to tell. 

We trudged home through the snow and looked forward to the presents under the Christmas tree. 

I won't tell you what presents we got back then.

I think everyone likes to remember the Christmas of their own childhood and which present was the best.

Now I wish us all that we don't run out of money when shopping for presents and that the little laughing man from my story has the upper hand. Have a good pre-Christmas season.