Christmas Party

I can't tell you how disappointed I was to miss our chapter AHSGR Christmas party. Besides great company and food, I was looking forward to the telling of stories about the Christmases of Germans from Russia. Hopefully, I can hear some of them later. Family commitments, health, and weather kept me from coming, but I still wanted to share my family's story. So, here goes...

When I was younger, my uncles shared this family tradition with me. The Burghardt family in Pfeifer, Russia, was so large that they actually occupied two houses that were next door to each other. They were located across the street from the Catholic Church. At Christmas time, a line was strung from the roof of the church to that of the Burghardt home. Candles were attached to that line to decorate for Christmas. I couldn't actually picture how that would work, so I sort of brushed it off as just a good story. Many years later when I obtained a copy of a map of Pfeifer which showed the village, complete with family names labeled on the homes, I was surprized. There were indeed two houses next door to each other that belonged to a Burghardt family. They were across the street from the Catholic Church. If that part of it was true, then maybe the story about the Christmas candles was also true. Now I treasure that story as part of my family's Christmas tradition.