It was an elaborate logistical process, following the same pattern every year. Mother had spread out a laundry basket full of presents and a few bags. Father was regularly busy fixing the Christmas tree in the stand, the tree was always too big and every year the question arose as to whether the fir tree should be shortened at the expense of some of its branches at the bottom or rather at its top, which then disappeared under a decorative top. Mother feared for the harmony of the top, father was afraid of the hacking at the trunk, but somehow we always found a solution - no, not in the middle for once, it would have been difficult with the tree...
Then, when the fir tree was ready to be decorated, we - father and the two children - set off on the parcel tour.
The trunk of our estate car, a 1972 Toyota Corona Mk II Station Wagon, was always packed full when we left the house shortly after midday. To this day, I don't know whether it speaks for or against our family, but almost all the members, grandparents, uncles, aunts and whatever relationship all the people had to us and my parents, they all lived in the city or region of Lucerne. Only one family had moved to Bern, but even for this delivery - or handover, some call it profanely or even contemptuously "exchange" - of gifts, we had devised an ingenious procedure.
The first stop was usually in Malters. There we brought presents to my father's godmother, a great-aunt, and her husband. Every year she gave us all made-to-measure shirts, for my parents, my sister and me. However, the good aunt never had to take measurements, she had a trained eye as a tailor and worked for the largest uniform tailor in Switzerland at the time. That was enough, everything fitted - always! The kitchen was a long tube at the end of which there was always a real wood-burning stove next to an electric stove that was rarely used. That's where the fresh plaited bread came from. Meanwhile, her husband told us about the times in the late 1940s and 1950s when the two of them toured Europe, first on a motorcycle (AJS) and later in a Fiat 600. The great-aunt was the only woman of her generation in my family who already had a driver's license at the time. He, on the other hand, had started his professional career as a chauffeur at a large Swiss rusk factory in Malters, driving a Ford AA that was already badly worn out by the end of the 1930s.
Well-fed, we drove on to Kriens, here mostly accompanied by the smell of a shoemaker's workshop, because an uncle ran one - it still exists, run by the next generation. In some years, this was one of the few opportunities to meet up with this part of the family, and we often brought or picked up a few worn-out or shiny new shoes as well as presents. The cars parked behind the Art Nouveau building on the main street were always exciting. The uncle in question was the first in the family with a "real" off-road vehicle: first he had a Lada Niva, which made quite an impression on us, then even a Mitsubishi Pajero, which I was convinced would be unstoppable. Then we went to the next address, to my godfather, just a few blocks away. My little cousin, his son, hardly ever had much interest in toy cars, but I was all the more interested in his and always took a look in his toy box.
And always on this tour through and around the city just before Christmas Eve, the family car was our spaceship, our transporter of childlike anticipation and a place full of the utmost excitement before Christmas. But the journey went a little further first.
Freshly decorated, our paternal grandparents' Christmas tree was always ready for us children to "attack" the afternoon before Christmas Eve. Because there was always a lot of chocolate hanging from it, or "Schoggi" - with a pronounced "O" as our grandmother used to say. "Baba", on the other hand, our grandfather, was ALWAYS sitting on the sofa with his legs crossed, pressing on the TV and complaining about what was flickering across the screen - usually the children's program to make the wait a little easier for his offspring.
Our grandfather bought his first car in 1947 directly from the dealership in Mulhouse F. The tires for his Citroën Traction 11BL had to be paid for separately and it is said that there were only four of them, the rim was mounted on the "Malle Plate" without a tire under its cover. But when I was a child, his "Légère" was long gone. Baba drove a bright orange Renault 12 back then, but the Traction was often a topic of conversation during the visits before Christmas Eve, the car seemed like a great adventure and Baba told us about punctures on the way to Paris or a village blacksmith in Trun GR who had lifted him out of the ditch by the mudguard after crossing the narrow mountain road with a truck had gone wrong.
The last stop on our parcel tour was always the house of my godmother and her husband. Both were very humble people, honest and sincere, despite the difficult family conditions in which they had grown up during the Depression. Nevertheless, they knew best what delighted us children: there was always a Lego car ready for me before Christmas Eve, one that my godmother had always dismantled enough to fit back into the original box, but only enough for me to reassemble it in no time.
Meanwhile, her husband, my grandmother's brother on my father's side, usually mumbled something under his breath, got up from his chair reserved exclusively for him next to his sacred radio and his newspaper rack with puzzle magazines and fetched some box from an adjoining room. As a passionate flea market hunter, he had an eye for bargains - mostly old model trains - often so old that they were completely unknown to me. Incidentally, the crib in the blog post about the finds was made by him. There was always Valais dried meat to eat, nothing like Bündnerfleisch, and often in quantities that meant we were no longer very hungry for the Christmas meal. This feeling of fullness always accompanied the end of our gift tour, because as dusk fell, Father always told us to get ready to drive home.
Back in the car, freshly filled with the presents we had picked up, we headed home. Dad then handed Mom the overflowing laundry basket so that she could put its contents under the Christmas tree.
No, the Christ Child was never an issue for us children, we knew where the presents came from - because WE were the Christ Child! But we experienced this pre-Christmas magic, this joyful anticipation, during our visits and on the way in between in our car. This feeling, with Dad at the wheel and us two siblings in the back seat, on the journey towards Christmas Eve, is a special memory. And this unique magic and excitement in our "sleigh", with us as Santa Clauses, has never been repeated since we grew up.
Merry Christmas!
