December 2007
SILVESTER
In Germany, each day of the year is associated with the name of a saint. For December 31, it is Silvester, a 4th-century pope. This is now the name of the New Year’s Eve celebration.
As soon as we arrived at the Silvester gathering at Leopold’s aunt’s house, Leopold, and his cousin Gregor, started unloading the fireworks, an arsenal of rockets and explosives large enough to overthrow the government of a small country. I commented to Lydia that in most cities in the US they would be illegal. She looked at me, puzzled, and said, “what do you do on Silvester?”
An elderly woman, Leopold’s grandmother, arrived and helped herself to a beer. Her late husband, I learned, was a spoon collector and she gave us his photo book of his spoon collection.
During dinner I noticed that the Christmas tree had about two dozen unburned candles on it. I asked Gregor’s mother if she ever lit them. In response, she got up and lit them. I had never before seen a Christmas tree with burning candles. It was lovely.
As the evening wore on, the boys worked more on their fireworks planning. At one point they taped together several rockets and explosives to create a kind of bunker buster. For some reason, Lydia asked me to perform a safety check?
As midnight approached, the boys set up their launching pad and the adults came outside with Champaign. As the rockets went off, a neighbor came out with his own bottle and wished us all a Gutes Neue. The bunker buster fizzled.
Small Wide World 