Friday 25 December 2009

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


23 comments:

  1. That may be the cutest Santa and child I have EVER seen. Thank you for always delighting and transporting us with your beautiful photography. Merry Christmas.

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  2. You and your camera always bring the magic of the season to life. Merry Christmas to you and yours. :)

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  3. Frohe Weihnachten! And I enjoy your photos as usual :-)

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  4. Here's more information about the earthquake retrofitting on churches in San Francisco with links to images of St. Mark's Lutheran which survived both the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes.

    Joyeux Noël!

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  5. Dear Merisi - wishing you and your family a beautiful Christmas! And thank you for all your wonderful comments on my blogs over the past couple of years. It is a pleasure to know you through your photographs and written words.
    Lori Lynn

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  6. Merry, Merry Christmas!

    Paz xoxo

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  7. I needed my glasses today to read your tiny writing.....:-)
    Happy Day to you and yours.

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  8. Thank you for your kind comments!

    Britt-Arnhild:
    I am sorry, but I am at a loss to understand what happened. Nothing has changed on my blog, I use the same typeface and size.

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  9. Merry Christmas to you and yours, M. xx

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  10. Dear readers:
    Would you please be so kind and let me know if anything with my blog has changed lately? Britt-Arnhild had difficulty reading it today, but I cannot find anything different from previous days, neither from the laptop I usually work on, nor from the PC.
    Thank you so much!

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  11. Merry Christmas, Merisi, and God bless you and keep you and yours. Thank you so much for this beautiful blog which always brightens my day.

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  12. I am here again Merisi. I am sorry, but it seems like it was the setting on my computer which did it. All the kids are home for Christmas, and somehow they all seem to use my laptop.....and changes are done all the time. The prize to pay to have them all home I guess :-)

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  13. Wonderful post! It captures the atmosphere beautifully.

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  14. Your little wooden figures are as delicious as the edible bits of your photos!

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  15. The wooden figures are absolutely adorable. And the cookies! Merry Christmas, dear Merisi.

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  16. Frohe Weihnachten, Merisi! These pictures remind me of when I was a little girl in Germany. My dad was stationed there four different times. Christmas was SO special there!!! Hope you had a wonderful day with your family. We actually got snow on Christmas Eve in Dallas.....go figure! :D
    Peace and Joy,
    ~Allie

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  17. Merisi, this Christmas Day post and its immediate predecessors were all in a perfect size, and in a sublime sense of creative selection and expression.

    Wishing you and your family a wonderfully Happy Christmas. And ... what happiness we will trade back and forth the Atlantic in the New Year.

    You are a marvelous ambassador for your city. xo

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  18. Very charming post, Merisi.
    I wish you a very Happy Christmas!

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  19. Wishing you a very merry Christmas, with lot`s of blessings -Gypsy Purple -Chamara

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  20. that looks beautiful as ever!

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  21. All I can think of to say is :
    Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

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  22. How interesting! Hope your holiday was wonderful!

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