Long smiled at, the little Christmas angels belong to the family: Part 18 of the FR Advent stories
They are tiny, usually no taller than two inches. They wear white shirts on their bodies, and the collar and sleeves are set off in light blue. The little feet and hands are pin-sized, round balls. Pink dots on her cheeks indicate the exertion of the activity, the lips and eyes always look to the viewer as if there was something mischievous behind them. No wonder when you have green dotted wings on your back.
Oh yes, they are pretty mischievous, these sweet Wendt and Kühn angels from my Christmas angel orchestra, without which Christmas in the Münstermann house would not be Christmas. We inherited the Winz orchestra, which consists of just under three dozen little angels, from my mother-in-law Helene. Helene would have turned 91 on December 18 of this year.
christmas rituals
For some it is the goose on Christmas Eve, for others it has to be “Three Nuts for Cinderella” in the afternoon program. We all have certain stories, films or rituals that belong to Christmas – and without which our Advent season would only be half as festive. This year you will not only find the popular personal stories in the FR advent calendar, but also raffles every now and then. Good luck and in any case: Happy Holidays! FR
I still remember exactly when, newly married, I spent the first Christmas party in 1995 at my mother-in-law’s house in Hamburg. From a distance you could see the lights surrounding the figures through the windows and had the feeling – sorry if that sounds cheesy – that the spirit of Christmas is blowing here. I quickly realized that the Grünhainichener Engelchen did indeed spread an immensely homely atmosphere, but also a little more: cheerfulness.
Helene, who had collected the handmade (and, I would like to add, not entirely cheap) figures throughout her life, could not only say of each individual whether she had bought them herself and where or who gave them to her when and on what occasion. No no. My mother-in-law had given each angel an earthly counterpart. “Look, the one here who carries the bell and the lantern: That’s the original, your elder, who always avoids the stage appearance,” she said with a laugh to me and then pointed straight to the next angel. One with a trumpet. The way he puffs up his cheeks looks like “Your middle man drinking cocoa,” she said. Or the blonde harp angel. “With those cheeky ponytails just like your youngest.” Or the one on the organ that plays “Silent Night” when it is wound up. “The organ player, that’s your husband, so my youngest,” said Helene and added: “He always likes to have a lot of people around, but still needs space.”
By the way, my mother-in-law never told me which angel she had mentally deposited me. “Sabine, where’s the fun? You have to guess and think about what the angels stand for! ”I suspect she had given me one of the timpani because I often, especially when the children were little, hit the kettledrum symbolically when it was too colorful for me became… Which angel was intended for Helene, on the other hand, there was no mistaking about it, even if it was never discussed: of course the conductor with the baton.
Every year our children – even though they are now 20, 17 and 14 years old – pull out the boxes in which the angels are carefully packed again after the party (incidentally, metal boxes that contained Nuremberg gingerbread decades ago – my mother-in-law loved such packaging) the cellar and argue about who is allowed to place the strings this year, who is to place the brass and who is to place the choir players where – only the conductor is never an issue. Mum or dad can set it up. Because that’s the “Helene” angel.
