a little Christmas story

It was the night of the third Advent when Lucy crept barefoot across the carpet towards her grandmother's bedroom. Her head, with lots of blonde curls sticking out in all directions, simply wouldn't let her fall asleep. Too many Christmas questions were swirling around in it!

How tall would the tree be that Dad brings home from the market this year? What delicacies would Mum cook for Christmas Eve and even more importantly: what presents would she get from Father Christmas? 

No, thought Lucy, with such thoughts in her head, no child in the whole, big, wide world could fall asleep. The excitement tingled inside her, like sherbet powder on the tongue. 

But Grandma would surely be able to help her. Lucy secretly hoped that she would tell her one of her wonderful stories. A Christmas story, that would be lovely. Grandma was good at telling stories, but she also knew the very best ones – because they were always true. 

Lucy quietly opened the ajar door and peeped through the gap. Grandma wasn't asleep yet; she recognised her granddaughter straight away by the tip of her nose: "Well, little mouse? You should be sleeping." Lucy quickly slipped through the door and under Grandma's duvet so she couldn't get the idea to send her back to bed. 

"I can't sleep, Grandma!" she said miserably and snuggled up to her grandmother, who had just put down the book she had been reading.

"My head is full of Christmas thoughts." She ruffled her hair and shook her little blonde curly head.

Lucy's grandmother smiled at her granddaughter's words. She could still remember how much she had looked forward to Christmas when she was six years old. 

"Oh, I understand." she said gently, sat up a bit more and put her arm around little Lucy. "I know this anticipation well. When I was as small as you, Christmas was also something very, very special for me." 

Lucy made a face, as she always did when she imagined that her grandmother had once been small. She found the thought amusing. Sometimes she imagined what it would have been like to play tag or hide-and-seek with little Grandma. But then she remembered that children didn't have grey hair and a grandmother without grey hair – Lucy simply couldn't imagine that. But she always tried when Grandma told stories from her childhood – and Lucy loved these stories because they were true. 

"Was your Christmas back then just as lovely as mine today?" asked Lucy curiously and hoped for a story. Grandma smiled, but Lucy didn't see it. 

"Oh it was wonderful! You see, we had much, much more snow back then than we do today." 

Lucy snuggled even further under the duvet, Grandma's voice had changed, now it was coming, the story. 

"The snow lay so high on the streets and roofs that hardly any cars drove. Many simply stayed at home, stoked their stoves with wood and wrapped themselves up in their patchwork blankets. Almost everywhere in the windows the light from nativity scenes was burning. Most of them were made of wood and even handmade. I also made one at school at some point. My mother, your great-grandmother Lucy, put it in the biggest window back then so that everyone who walked past our little house could see my handmade wooden nativity scene. The air was bitterly cold, but that didn't matter. We sledged a lot and built snowmen. Your great-grandmother even put a candle in the head of the Father Christmas figures for each Advent!"

 Lucy giggled: "Why in the head?" Grandma tweaked her nose: "Because I was so bad at shaping hands!" 

They both laughed. Then Grandma continued: 

"Back then there weren't nearly as many presents as there are today, you know. Father Christmas didn't have much to give us and there were certainly children who needed to be given presents much more than we did back then. But what he brought us was all the more beautiful and valuable. I can still remember that I got red boots for church at one celebration – oh! You won't believe it, child, I wore those shoes to pieces, I loved them so much." 

For a brief moment there was silence and Lucy wondered for a moment whether it was really so wonderful to get shoes. But then she imagined that she would be very happy to get red sandals for her doll and filed away the church shoes as a good idea from Father Christmas. 

"What else?" asked Lucy eagerly when Grandma didn't continue. "Nothing else." she answered and had to smile again: "The red shoes and nothing else. But I didn't want anything more anyway, you know? The boots were enough for me. The presents weren't what stayed in my mind. Do you know what I prefer to think about? The scent of the Christmas tree, for example, or the shimmering tinsel that we hung on the tree every year… and every celebration when your great-grandfather could be there. These things were already a great, great blessing in themselves, you know?" 

Lucy wasn't sure, but her head was also getting heavier and heavier and it was already taking her a bit of effort to nod gently to her grandmother's question. Then she whispered sleepily, her eyes closed: "How big was the tree, Grandma?"

"The tree went right up to the ceiling." whispered Grandma back and switched off the light. 

"Really true?" asked Lucy and darkness settled over her tired child's eyes like a soft blanket. 

"Really true." answered Grandma. 

And with these words Lucy finally fell asleep.