Oh Tannenbaum, Oh Tannenbaum, how lovely are your branches?
You would think, in the land of Christmas Trees, at the foot of the Black Forest, that we would have a Weihnachtsbaum fit for a holiday card. Well, I am going to hope that all the beautiful trees are still standing, cleaning the Earth, and providing visual pleasure for countless years to come. I say thins because it seems that only the scraggly and unsightly trees are available for gracing the homes of Freiburgers.
History first: In the 16th century, German Christians brought decorated trees into their homes and are accredited with starting the Christmas tree tradition. It is rumored that Martin Luther, the 16th century Protestant reformer, first added candles to a tree. In the 1830s German settlers in Pennsylvania were the first ones to bring the Christmas tradition to America. Christmas tree ornaments were shipped from Germany in the 1890s, at a time when Christmas trees and ornaments were seen as pagan symbols by Americans. You’d think all these years of practice would yield some really great Christmas trees!
Reality next: Our Weihnachtsbaum is far from post-card quality. The first challenge was where to buy one. I asked my German teacher and she had no idea. We went to the Rathaus (Town Hall) and they were of little help. We ended up at the German version of Home Depot, which had about 3 parking spaces worth of selection. Every tree had at least two feet of branch-less trunk at the top and the rest was so sparse you could see through to the other side. After looking at four or five different trees, the man pulls one out and says, “DAS ist ein Tannenbaum!” (THAT is a fir tree!) He was pretty pumped about it. So I said, “Dann, das ist UNSER Tannenbaum!” (Then, that is OUR fir tree!) We loaded it into the trunk of our sedan, drove home, put it in the elevator, and then got to work!
Hanging the lights was an interesting task. I pretty much created a tangled mess of wires and lights where branches should be. I told Joe he had to take them all off in January. Poor kid.
The top of the trunk was about four inches too long to accommodate the star. I didn’t feel like trying to cut it with scissors, so I just folded it over. I expected it to snap and break, but no, it was just like folding a Twizzlers. Hmmm…that’s a new one.
The ornaments had to go through several screening processes since we were limited on space. To all those who didn’t make the cut: Sorry, try again next year.
The tree has been standing for several weeks now, thank goodness. We chose not to buy European Christmas lights, so we have the strands plugged into a transformer. It is always a surprise what the lights will look like when they are plugged in. Some strands go on, others don’t. Some turn off when they get too “tired”. Sometimes the entire tree just goes dark. We don’t ever leave the tree unattended, as it surely is a fire-hazard.
To top it all off, we get to keep the tree until January 18th! That is the only day that tree-pick up occurs on our street. Regardless of its idiosyncrasies, at its resemblance to Charlie Brown’s tree, it is our German Christmas tree and it makes us laugh.
Oh Tannenbaum, Oh Tannenbaum, your branches green delight us.