Christmas Eve with the Von Trapp Family
On Christmas Eve in the morning, the Church sang, “This day you shall know that the Lord is coming, and tomorrow you shall see His glory,” and, “Be ye lifted up, O eternal gates, and the King of glory shall enter in,” and also, “The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see, that the mouth of the Lord hath spoken.”
These promises will be fulfilled during Midnight Mass. The giving of gifts must have been advanced to Christmas Eve in most Catholic countries in order that the grown-ups may devote themselves with a quiet mind, unhindered by any commotion, to these great mysteries of the Holy Night.
And so Christmas Eve is the day for our children. When the little ones get up in the morning, they find the door of the living room closed, and no one is allowed to go in, much less to peek through the keyhole, because the Christ Child will come and bring the Christmas tree and all the gifts. Only Mother and Father may assist Him.
Christmas Eve is Confession day. Once more, we listen to the voice of St. John the Baptist, who admonishes us to prepare the way of the Lord and to do penance. When the Holy Child is entrusted into our hearts at midnight in our Christmas Communion, He shall find the place clean and swept and warm with love.
There is a certain hush all through the house. People are tiptoeing and whispering; at the same time there is an atmosphere of extreme activity. Mother and Father spend the day behind the closed doors, “helping the Christ Child.” In our house, the large Christmas tree—a twelve-foot-high, beautiful, thick balsam fir—requires a lot of time to be decorated in “the old way.” During the preceding nights, the older children have wrapped up candies in tinfoil or in tissue paper with fringed edges and have then tied red thread to candies, as well as to hundreds of cookies. They are hung on the tree first. On the lower branches, we also hang small apples and tangerines. Then come Christmas-tree decorations from our home studios—angels and stars worked in silver or brass, which will glitter later in the light of the candles. Yes, candles—because there will be six dozen small candleholders with real candles fastened to the branches. (On either side of the tree there will be a camouflaged bucket with water and a mop with a long handle, “just in case.” So far, we have never needed it.)
