Munichburg Memories: My Boyhood Christmas in Jefferson City

Thursday, December 6, 2012

My Boyhood Christmas in Jefferson City

A fourth-century bishop by the name of Nicholas was known for giving gifts to people secretly. He was deemed a saint, and his death date, December 6, has ever since been known as his feast day, St. Nicholas Day, in Catholic and Orthodox churches. For centuries Christians gave gifts on December 6.

In the sixteenth century Martin Luther, the great reformer of the church, insisted on going back to holy scripture, and since St. Nicholas was not in the Bible, Luther said that the date of Christ’s birth should be used for the annual practice of gift giving. At that time, December 25 was the recognized date of Christ’s birth, so Christians in Germany shifted gift giving from St. Nicholas Day, December 6, to Christmas Day, December 25.

But not everyone agreed to this. Some German Christians followed Luther’s lead to use December 25, but others continued with December 6. Some families used both! St. Nicholas brought gifts to children on December 6, and the Christ Child (Christkind, later called Kris Kringle) brought gifts on December 25. My immigrant grandparents, of the German Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, were of this “double tradition.”

This oversimplified background is necessary to understand how Christmas came to a little five-year old boy in Jefferson City: By the 1930s in America, “St. Nicholas” had become Santa Claus, who came on Christmas Eve, and the guy who visited on December 6 was “Kris Kringle,” who still looked a lot like St. Nicholas.

On December 6 my brother and I used straight pins to hang our long socks on the beaverboard wall that enclosed our attic bedroom. We could have set our little shoes outside the bedroom door, but it didn’t take much experimentation to discover that our long winter socks stretched and could hold more than our little leather shoes.

So it was Kris Kringle who came during the night of December 6—but wait! He wasn’t alone! Accompanying him was mean ol’ Knecht Ruprecht. That was the only name we heard. Of course, we never saw these two characters. If we had been good boys, good Kris Kringle left hard candy and maybe an apple or orange in our socks, but we sure preferred the candy. If we had not been good, then that mean ol’ Knecht Ruprecht left us sticks, or maybe pieces of coal.

One December 6, we were shocked to find sticks in our socks! We didn’t know what we had done that was so bad, but it sure scared us. Maybe our aging grandparents, who lived with us, overheard us saying something bad, or maybe we hadn’t done our chores. Whatever the reason, those sticks did the trick, and we shaped up during the next couple of weeks before real Christmas. Parents, you see, used December 6 as a warning for kids to behave during those very busy days before Christmas.

When Christmas morning came, we had gifts galore. All of grandpa and grandma’s children (our aunts and uncles) and their children (our cousins) came to Jefferson City for Christmas. They all converged on our house on Christmas Day. Since my brother and I were the youngest grandchildren in this crowd (during 1938–1941 we ranged from 4 to 10), all those relatives gave us extra attention.

As the years went on, St. Nicholas Day, December 6, was dropped but not forgotten. At least, not by me. Each year, come December 6, I remember those sticks I got in 1939. The image of them in my socks hanging on the wall reminds me to shape up. It makes me think of the real meaning of Christmas and inspires me to give gifts to others.

Today, few remember December 6 as the original day for Christians to give gifts. Absolutely everything is now concentrated on December 25. Christmas celebrations and songs stop the next day, people take down their Christmas trees, and by New Year’s Day, most public traces of Christmas are long gone.

Yet another old tradition is to continue the Christmas season through the Twelve Days of Christmas, which begin on Christmas Day and end on January 6, Epiphany, when the Three Kings arrived bearing gifts (and you supposedly get twelve drummers drumming). Today, marketers would have you think that the Twelve Days comprise the final twelve shopping days before Christmas! Many European countries, however, still celebrate the arrival of the Wise Men on January 6.

Considering how few Americans observe the Twelve Days of Christmas, special congratulations are due to Jefferson City’s Central United Church of Christ, which has always kept its Christmas stars on its tall steeple shining until Epiphany, January 6!

Merry Christmas from the Old Munichburg Association! Consider a gift membership for your loved ones this year. It’s non-cluttering, non-fattening, and gives both the giver and the recipient a warm feeling inside!

Copyright 2012 by Walter A. Schroeder.

5 comments:

dana said...: I so enjoyed reading your post. . .I learned so much from it!!

Dana; December 10, 2012 at 3:15 PM
Anonymous said...: Froehliche Weinachten und ein gluckliches neues Jahr, von Virginia!; December 17, 2012 at 12:16 AM
Julianna Schroeder said...: Thanks for commenting, Dana and Virginia! We hope you had a lovely Christmas, and best wishes for a healthy and prosperous 2013!; December 29, 2012 at 1:53 PM
Walter Schroeder said...: In old Germany, New Year's Eve was Sylvesterabend, or Sylvester Evening. Folks would melt some lead shot in a spoon over a candle and let it drip into a glass of water. Then the oldest in the house would tell fortunes for the coming year from the shape of the congealed lead droplets, similar to the way others would read tea leaves. Lots of old customs brought over from the old country. Thanks for commenting! Walter Schroeder; December 30, 2012 at 3:48 PM
Sujano Denjen said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.; April 11, 2020 at 1:03 AM

This is not a horror novel—far from it!

Following his popular memoir Buddy’s Stories, historian Walter A. Schroeder presents another warm and colorful collection of more than 90 essays about growing up in Jefferson City in the 1940s.

With humor and insight, Schroeder provides a personal glimpse into his family life and his experiences as a child growing up in Jefferson City’s Southside neighborhood—a Germantown district also called Old Munichburg. It’s a treasury of essays describing his childhood growing up under the same roof as his immigrant grandparents, parents, two brothers, and renters, and surrounded by a vibrant, supportive community.

In the title essay, Schroeder shares a whimsical story of the time when all the kids on the block saw the movie Revenge of the Zombies and spent the next week staggering around the neighborhood's sidewalks, arms outstretched, wearing vacant expressions—causing passing motorists to do double-takes!

Schroeder’s crisp details revive scenes of the past so we can better understand and imagine Jefferson City in the 1940s. As he explains, “In every generation . . . young people learn only the skeleton of the past. I want to put meat on the skeleton’s bones.”

This new book by Schroeder, a beloved Missouri geographer and historian, is not to be missed!

Published in 2023 by the Old Munichburg Association

304 pages; 85 photographs and illustrations; index

$25

Available at Downtown Book and Toy, J Street Vintage, and ECCO Lounge

Everyone has a story. This is Buddy’s.

Meet Buddy: a bike-riding, towheaded, everyday kid growing up on Elm Street during World War II. Everyone he knows is a proud American, including his German-immigrant grandparents. Life on the Southside isn’t rosy, but people do what they can to get by—and Buddy and his friends grow up learning to reduce, reuse, and recycle . . . to be self-sufficient . . . and to help others.

Generous with details, the geographer and historian Walter A. Schroeder—nicknamed “Buddy” in his youth—shares his personal memories of growing up in Jefferson City, Missouri. His descriptions will resonate with people who remember those simpler times, and they will cause others to reflect on what we lost as the years went by.

These 42 brief essays cover an array of topics about Jefferson City places, everyday life, the effects of World War II, and expressions of patriotism. How did families make ends meet? How did kids participate in the war effort? What was it like to have bread, eggs, milk, and coal delivered, to make sauerkraut in the basement, to be fitted for shoes with commercial X-ray machines? What did kids do for fun? How did the old Missouri River Bridge rotate, and what was it like to go to the dime store?

Engagingly written, enhanced by the judgment of a professional historian, and illustrated with 72 photos, maps, and scrapbook mementos, Buddy’s Stories is a vibrant perspective on Jefferson City history . . . and a fond commemoration of the way things used to be.

“I helped my grandfather make beer while Doctor Hill came to our house and brought my brother Walter Albert Schroeder into the world. He cost twenty-five dollars. My parents got a bargain, and I got a ‘buddy.’”

—Richard A. Schroeder, older brother

“This book is a real treasure. Buddy treats us to recollections of our community. It is as if he, Richard, and I are sitting together talking about the old days.”
—Thomas K. Schroeder, younger brother

Published in 2018 by the Old Munichburg Association

200 pages; 70 photographs, maps, and illustrations

$15

Available at Downtown Book and Toy, ECCO Lounge, Samuel's Tuxedo, Schaefer House, and Central UCC

Read the Book!

Southside Sketches: Essays on Jefferson City’s Old Munichburg
by Walter A. Schroeder

During his tenure as secretary of the Old Munichburg Association, Walter Schroeder “spiced up” his monthly mailings of the group’s minutes with brief essays on the district’s history. What began as a side project became a collection of essays illuminating the Southside’s history of organizations and people, and of its very environment. At turns humorous, nostalgic, poignant, questioning—but always keenly insightful—these “sketches” draw upon personal memories as well as archival research.

Schroeder shares detailed recollections about life before air-conditioning, shopping at mom-and-pop groceries, using sales-tax tokens, and many other memories of his youth. Other stories came from interviews with his mother and other old-time Southside residents, who spoke of visits by gypsies, the time a steamboat managed to dock some six blocks south of the Missouri River, and explorations of the area’s legendary tunnels and caves. Schroeder gleaned several other interesting tales from archival sources, including the German-language newspapers favored by the Southside immigrants—yet read by few today.

200 pages, paperback
OUT OF PRINT

Also by Walter Schroeder

Breweries and Saloons in Jefferson City, Missouri
by Walter A. Schroeder

Got Gemütlichkeit? The German immigrants to Jefferson City certainly did, and from the time they started arriving in the area in the 1840s to the present day, good-natured beer drinking among friends has fostered social connections, spurred economic growth, fed the city’s hospitality industry, and nourished a sense of ethnic identity.

Historian, geographer, and native Southsider Walter Schroeder grew up in the shadow of Capitol Brewery, a grandson of German immigrants and an enthusiastic supporter of Munichburg’s history and future. After exploring the written record, including old German-language local newspapers, as well as collecting oral histories from local residents, he relates what he has learned about the city’s breweries, saloons, beer gardens, and other beer-related history.

From the earliest years of Jefferson City, its ethnic Germans have run breweries, gathered in beer gardens, and established saloons, taprooms, and taverns. In these pages you will learn about the following and much more:

—The George Wagner Brewery, which started in the Southside of Jefferson City in 1870, produced an impressive seventy barrels a day, and was one of the first companies to freeze its own ice.
—The Capitol Brewery, which offered authentic Bavarian beer and dominated the region’s beer sales from the 1890s through the end of World War II, grew to become the city’s Coca-Cola bottler.
—The Franz beer garden in the 1870s occupied the hilltop that is today the home of St. Mary’s Health Center. It was a grassy, breezy gathering place for relaxing, dancing, and singing, offering a tremendous view of the young town—plus sausage, cheese, crackers, and freshly made Franz beer.
—The ECCO Lounge, the city’s longest-running taproom and restaurant, has roots going back to 1860, when it offered food, libation, and lodging to out-of-town farmers who had carted their goods for sale in the capital city.

Although “having a beer with one’s friends” is certainly no longer a way to profile someone as “German” in Missouri’s capital city, everyone with an interest in the art and history of brewing, the many stories of the city, or German heritage will enjoy this celebration of the city’s German immigrants, their ethnic beverage, and its magical capacity for bringing people together.

Published by the Old Munichburg Association.
Paperback, 50 pp., 38 illustrations, 6 x 9"
$8, plus $3 shipping and handling (please include $1.50 s&h for each additional book sent to the same address).

Note: The Breweries and Saloons book is available at the ECCO Lounge.