A Christmas Nutcracker

Tuesday found me feeling rather blue and mildly depressed and totally lacking in the Christmas spirit. I was a bit upset at not having this week off of work and to add to it, I'd just been diagnosed with a slight muscle tear in my left leg, sending me back to physical therapy for the umpteenth time. I got off work early to start PT with an initial intake evaluation, which is what they do before they decide on a course of treatment. The place was deserted and Lisa, the only one there that afternoon, with whom I have worked many times before in PT, did my evaluation and I learned a few exercises plus a home regimen to follow. While it was good to see her again, I found myself very much missing the people who are usually there and hoping I'd see them again soon. Arriving home, I ate lunch, decorated my house for Christmas despite feeling down all day, went to the gym to work out early in the evening despite the injured knee, and eventually went over to my mom's for dinner. My brother and his girlfriend just returned from visiting my sister in Germany, where she lives with her family, and they gave me a lovely little handmade German Nutcracker ornament for my Christmas tree that my sister sent to me from Germany (doubtless purchased at one of the many Christkindl Markts that she took my brother and his girlfriend to during theif visit). I don't know why, but this simple little item just lifted my spirits immensely and somehow made me feel so much better. There is something irresistably charming about this Nutcracker figure that I don't quite understand (maybe there really IS a handsome prince behind its strange façade!), but it served to warm my heart quite a bit, and arriving home that evening, I placed it front and center on my Christmas tree so that all could see it who might drop by for a visit. This lovely little Nutcracker ornament somehow, by its peculiar magic, served to finally put me in the Christmas spirit at long last and got me over feeling so depressed. It made me believe once again in the power of the magic of Christmas.

Last year I attended the "Chriskindl Market" (the Akron-ized version of a German "Christkindl Markt") in downtown Akron at Lock 3 Park and bought a little pickle ornament and a little wooden bell to add to my Christmas tree. Although I have long had something of a musical theme to my tree for some time now, I am thinking of changing it to traditional German ornaments to remind me of a Christmas spent in Germany some time ago now. After all, it was the Germans who practically invented the Christmas that we know and love now. And having ancestors from Germany on my father's side of the family (and I desire someday to visit the town of Giessen in the Hesse-Darmstadt region of Germany should I ever have the privilege to return to Europe for a visit), I especially feel a certain connection to our German heritage this time of year. I hope to attend the Akron "Chriskindl Market" before it closes next week and perhaps stock up on some more traditional German ornaments and eat some delicious German food as well. I'm glad that Akron is doing this sort of thing to highlight its own German heritage, as many of that nationality settled in that city and ran breweries in the 19th and early 20th century. There is still at least one German social club still open, the "Sons of Herman" (I love that name!), although most of the ethnic social clubs have long since disappeared for lack of younger membership, since they are far more assimilated and American than were their grandparents and great-grandparents who emigrated from the Old World to settle in the New and needed a way to maintain their connections to their old home countries via ethnic social clubs. North Hill Akron still has the "Carovillese Club" for the Italian population and I once drove by an "Austrian American club" down in the south part of Akron that still appeared to be open, but for the most part, younger people who were born of immigrants and raised in America aren't really that into their particular ethnicities. As far as they are concerned, they're Americans, born and raised. So the old social club scene in Akron has largely vanished, but the "Chriskindl Market" hearkens back to part of Akron's ethnic heritage that built that city. And as far as I am concerned, it is a good thing that they have this each holiday season.