Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it, and may your holidays be peaceful and full of joy and warmth to everyone! While my annual pic spam will feature the usual Bamberg suspects, I shall open with the amazing AIKO nativity scene I found in Salzburg. You'll find out why. (And what AIKO stands for.)



( The Nativity in Salzburg and Bamberg awaits )

...to everyone who celebrates, and be safe if you're in the US and menaced by a snowstorm (or its aftermath). It's my pleasure to share my annual pic spam of the creches and nativity scenes in the churches of Bamberg (and this time, a little bit of Munich) with you again. Welcome to Franconian Bethlehem(s)!



( More under the cut )

First, a question: last night I wanted to watch the latest Star Trek: Discovery episode, when about fifteen minutes in, the screen vent black on me, and when I reentered Netflix, all two and two third seasons of Disco episodes were no more. I tried my laptop, in case it was simly due to the machine I was watching it on, but the result was the same. For a moment, I wondered whether this was a marketing gag supposed to simulate the effect of the Burn, but surely not? Do tell if this happened to anyone else.

Secondly: uually, I inflict a nativity scenes pic spam on you all, for a previous example see here, but circumstances this year are special. My hometown hit on the clever idea of putting some of the nativity scenes usually exhibited in a small church into various windows of shops in the old city centre, so you can watch them from the outside, breathing fresh air. This made photogaphing a bit tricky and created some interesting special effects, as in, I was reflected in a lot of those windows, and I'd rather not. And so in lieu of a proper pic spam I give you only three photos from nativity scenes in the year of the plague:



I think it's unlikely that Joseph would be anti-mask, but hey. Meanwhile, check this out:



And lastly:



Back to reading Yuletide stories.

Like every year, the APs & self yesterday visited and admired the various nativity scenes in the many, many churches we have in Bamberg. Like every year, I wanted to share as a seasonal greeting, but photobucket foiled me, so at last, I picked the DW image storing option instead. Anyway: Merry Christmas to all who want to celebrate, and best wishes for peaceful holidays for everyone!



( More nativity imagery both Franconian and not beneath the cut )

Erich Kästner, author of witty and wise poems and some of the most beloved books for children in German literature, about whom I’ve written before, also wrote one of the saddest Christmas stories I know, but not in any of his works of fiction. It’s from his book about his childhood, Als ich ein kleiner Junge war („When I was a little boy“), and I was reminded of it recently, when encountering, not for the first time, a complaint that Das doppelte Lottchen, aka the work that was later bastardized into US movies called The Parent Trap (which I still haven’t watched, mostly because I’m told that the hard working Munich journalist mother of the original becomes a Boston society lady there, and that’s just not on!), is clueless and/or screwed up about marital enstragement and divorce, presenting it as something easily overcome for the sake of the nuclear family. Now, Das doppelte Lottchen was one of the earliest children’s books to deal with divorce at all in Germany, and you won’t get any argument from me re: the lack of realism of its central premise, but that wasn’t because Kästner himself didn’t know that some couples really are (or would be) better off separated, or that „for the sake of the child(ren)“ can ring hollow. (And no, not because one of them is a wife beater or an ax murderer.) Case in point: his parents. Which brings me to that autobiographical Christmas story of his, translated here into English by yours truly. (Some additional background notes: Kästner’s father Emil had started out as a saddle maker and then had become a carpenter; his mother Ida started as a maid and later became a hair dresser, mostly because they needed the additional money so young Erich could afford to stay at school and then go to college instead of becoming a workman himself. Oh, and in Germany, presents are given on Christmas Eve, in the evening, not on Christmas Day in the morning.)

„My parents were, out of love for me, jealous of each other. They tried to hide it, and often they succeeded. But on the most beautiful day of the year, they never managed. Otherwise they tried to pull themselves together as best they could, for my sake, but on Christmas Eve, they couldn’t do it very well. I knew that, and had to pretend I didn’t for all our sakes.

( Why Erich Kästner hated Christmas more than Scrooge ever did )

Kästner published this book only after his mother had died (though his father was still alive), and in it, he tried to explain her further. Here’s the thing: Als ich ein kleiner Junge war actually wasn’t one of Kästner’s „adult“ books (like Fabian). It was explicitly a memoir aimed at children (ending with the beginning of WWI, not so coincidentally). Now, in Kästner’s novels some dark stuff happens now and then, but as far as I recall nothing as harrowing as this (though there is something of it in some of the darker poems):

( Norma Bates in Dresden )

If you're wondering where the fact the children in Kästner's novels tend to be the "adults", taking care of their parents or making them see reason comes from - wonder no longer.

Some years ago, I joked about shows Least Likely To Do A Christmas Special, and I think I picked Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and then came up with a Christmas Special Type of scenario.

This year, I think my pick for Least Likely But Wouldn’t It Have Been Fun In An Absurd Way would be Black Sails. Leaving aside that Black Sails takes place more than a century before good old Albert introduced the British to the joys of German Christmas celebrations and thus Christmas would have been celebrated very differently anyway…

( Spoilers, natch )

Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it, and good tidings to everyone else. Like every year, I present the result of our annual nativity scenes walk to share with all of you, starting with a favourite detail, the basket ball player from Bethlehem (courtesy of our Bamberg basket ball team being one of the town’s pride and joys):



( Read more... )

In case I won't be able to post later, as in Germany the 24th, not the 25th, is the day of gifts: cats, Aged Parents and self wish a merry christmas:




...and now we're off to our annual walk through the Bamberg churches to admire the nativity scenes.

Aka, the results of my annual visit of various churches at Christmas Eve to look at the nativity depictions there. We've got some amazing artisans in Bamberg, and this year there was some redecoration, plus they finally finished restoring one of the key churches two days before Christmas. All the figurines wow me every year with their detail, and I'm glad to share.

( Pictures await under the cut! )

And thus I conclude my last pic spam for this year and return to reading Yuletide stories. I haven't even begun watching the various tv shows and Christmas specials yet...

Somewhat belated, because the combination of my Aged Parent having a severe cold and bad weather on Christmas Eve meant we did our annual walk from one Bamberg church to another to admire the nativity scenes in same on the 26th instead. Said bad weather, which keeps going, ensures that you're not getting any outside pictures of Bamberg this year. Luckily, the week before Christmas the weather was quite nice in the snowy Alps when I was there, so, have an impression of the Tegernsee (Rottach-Egern, to be precise) in winter first before we get to the nativity scenes:



Now, on to the annual selenak Christmas tradition:

( below the cut )