Oh Tannen-Bomb

I have celebrated Christmas in many of its various traditions: the U.S. (from big city to small country), Japan, England, Finland, Haiti, Cuba, Nigeria, and, most memorably, Germany.

While living in Germany, since I was so far from my family, one of my best friends invited me to join her family for Christmas. On Christmas Eve after performing in a concert in Leipzig’s Thomaskirsche (made famous for Bach’s music), I took a ride from the German version of Uber across the country to an extremely small village near the Western border, a spit away from The Netherlands.

The moment I arrived, her whole family was sitting in the kitchen snacking on homemade bread and drinking beer. They jumped up as if excited to see me but went straight for their coats and knit hats. A little confused by the sudden chaos, I asked what was going on. “Time to go get the tree,” her mother said, “we’ve been waiting for you.”

Accustomed to the traditions of my own family back in America, I was baffled as to why they didn’t already have their tree up and decorated. Running out the back door, her father and brother grabbed large, well-used axes.

After marching a good two miles through the fresh heavy snow deep into the woods, the mother points and says in a heavy accent, “this one.” The father and brother hacked away at the tree while I started giggling. What was so funny? How incredibly cold I was. I was shaking so hard it was making me laugh when I exhaled. Anna and her mother started laughing at how maniacal I looked.

When they were done, I was so excited  to march back to their home and sit in front of a fire with some hot cider. But then we started taking a detour.

We went to the first house at the end of the street in their village, threw the tree against the house next to a bundle of other trees and just walked in. There were many villagers laughing and drinking gluhwein and eating Weihnachtsplätzchen with local cheese.

We left stuffed and tipsy. I was eager to get back- it had been a very long day. And then we drug the tree to the next house. And the next house. And the next house. We took a party break at every single house in the village on the way back. By the time we got back to the home, the family and I laughingly decorated the tree in the family room, stumbling over the furniture and all of the decorations.

I don’t remember when it stopped but I woke up to Anna’s mother nudging me awake. Groggily, I sat up and looked around to see the entire family intoxicated with sleep in the chairs and her brother on the floor. It was very late at night and I was incredibly comfortable in the fire lit room that seemed to be made entirely out of aged wood and stone.

“Zeit, zur Kirche zu gehen,” her mother said. I looked at her so hard I pulled a muscled in my eye. “Time for church,” she repeated.

The room slowly churned awake with lingering intoxication. We clumsily put on our still-wet winter clothing and crammed into the station wagon and drove to the incredibly old-stone church outside the village in the middle of a large clearing.

As I stepped out of the car, I was punched in the face with the worst odor I have ever smelled.

“Was ist das Scheißgeruch!?” I asked.

The father laughed heavy at my German. He had never heard an American say “shitty smell.” He was very tickled. He had also forgotten that everyone was use to the smell of the local fish processing plant and could barely smell it anymore. It caused a more violent reaction than a smoke bomb someone had set off in my middle school many years before. I was surprised it didn’t make my wine come up and out.

Sitting in the second hard-wood pew from the front, the pastor stood on her elevated sermon mound mumbling in drunken German, “Christus, blu bla blur bli,” I imagined Charlie Brown’s teacher teaching German, “Weihnachte…whah whah whah whah.”

I noticed the room had begun to stir mid-sermon. A light snore was percolating from the back of the sanctuary. And then another. And another. Suddenly, Anna’s father a few seats down began snoring with a lionary roar.

I couldn’t hold it anymore. The smells of fish guts and wine-breath mixed with the sounds of fumbling German and snores yanked out of me a hyper-suppressed guttural laugh that squeaked out as a swinish snort.

The mother elbowed me hard and glared at me to stop laughing. The snores harmonized together to an unfazed melodic blurry sermon. My laughter was no longer suppressed; I was crying I was laughing so hard. My laughter woke everyone up. The mother cringed with German fury.

The service ended with the traditional singing of Stille Nacht. However, it was so drunken and blurred to a dirge-like lullaby that I now fell asleep and began snoring myself. Ten minutes later when the song was finally over, the family quickly left, leading the embarrassing American out of their neighbors’ lives.

That night, I slept harder than I ever remember – drunken and worn out with laughter.

To this day, I am still the only one who laughs about that night. And I still can’t help it.