Merry Christmas To All!

All Christmas Eve
and into the night,
Weihnachtsmann and Christkind
had delivered gifts
to the good children of Vienna.

The moon had set
on the hills of the Grinzing vineyards,
the stars were waning one by one,
when they finally arrived at the last house
at the edge of the Vienna Woods.

"Oh,
Father Christmas,"
exclaimed the Christkind,
"look, hot tea
and sugar cookies
with meringue icing!"

*

Scenes of
Christmas Morning
at Merisi's.

Merry Christmas to all!

Das Christkind
(ger. "The Christ-Child"),
pronounced /kʁɪstkɪnt/,
is the traditional Christmas gift-bringer
in regions of Austria, the Czech Republic,
Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, Switzerland,
Slovakia, Hungary, parts of Hispanic America,
in certain areas of southern Brazil and in
the Acadiana region of Louisiana.
In Italy it is called Gesù Bambino
(Italian for "Baby Jesus"),
in Hungary its name is Jézuska,
in Slovakia Ježiško
and in the Czech Republic Ježíšek.

Promulgated by Martin Luther,
explicitly to discourage the figure of St. Nicholas,
it was adopted in Catholic areas during the 19th century,
while it began to be gradually replaced by
the Weihnachtsmann ("Father Christmas",
a secularized version of Saint Nicholas)
in Protestant regions. *

Weihnachtsmann and Christkind
Hand-crafted wooden figures
from the Erzgebirge region
of Saxony, Germany
(Merisi's collection)

*

Images and Own Text
© by Merisi
"Christkind" information
from Wikipedia.org