The Forgotten Christkind

Advent, Advent, ein Lichtlein brennt. Erst eins, dann zwei, dann drei, dann vier, dann steht das Christkind vor der Tür. Und wenn das fünfte Lichtlein brennt, dann hast du Weihnachten verpennt.
(Advent, Advent, a little light is burning. First one, then two, then three, then four, then the Christkind is standing at the door. And when the fifth little light is burning, you’ve slept through Christmas!)

It’s the nursery rhyme every child in Germany quotes at least once a week during the Adventszeit (Christmas time, 1 – 26th December).

Though there hasn’t been a Christkind at my doorstep for a long time, when I think back to the celebrations on the 24th, I remember an elderly man who would show up—dressed in red robes, with a long white beard and a sack full of presents.

We would play the piano for him, recite the rhymes we could remember, or sing our favorite Christmas songs in exchange for said presents. There were songs and rhymes all about the Christkind. The Jesus Christ turned phenomenon, which now has little to do with religion anymore, the phantom ingrained in our collective memory, slowly replaced by Santa Claus, one advertisement at a time.