MEMORIES+Belgium

Unforgettable memories of people between 15 and 30 years old:

Decorating the Christmas tree together with sisters and brothers. Having a chat with the neighbours on Christmas day. Someone once spent Christmas in the USA, visiting family. Someone once broke his leg skiing on Christmas day. One person mentions going to church on Christmas evening. Installing the nativity scene, the Magi (the ‘three kings’) were put a bit further of, and every day getting nearer so that on 6.1, they finally reached the infant Jesus. Wearing ‘Christmas balls’ (normally decorating the Christmas tree) as earrings… Once while lighting the candles on the wreath on the door, the wreath caught fire… A very warm feeling!

Unforgettable memories of the elderly:

Almost everybody: going to mass at midnight. The church was completely full of people. One person said that, as a child, she had to go to sleep on Christmas evening, to be woken up before midnight to go to church. She remembers the real-size sculptures of the Nativity scene, and the priest coming in with the infant Jesus. At school, some performed the Nativity play, as every child wanted to play a role, there were quite a lot of shepherds and angels. The English person went to mass on Christmas day, returning home to find a big, colourful dinner. When he was young, the war just finished, so it was not easy to get such a big, colourful dinner. So at that time he was very very happy. On New Year’s Day: reading your ‘New Year’s letter’ to your parents and godfather and godmother (and then get some money) A grandfather telling Christmas stories and Christmas poems to his grandchildren. When there was a lot of snow, children went skating Singing Christmas school together at school A man with the most wonderful voice singing ‘Adeste fidelis’ in church Someone remembers that on New Year’s day, just everybody (family, neighbours, friends…) came to her grandparents’ house. Her grandmother made Belgian waffles on the stove and everybody came round and ate waffles. One person was 4 when the war broke out, and remembers vividly how they had to flee from their home as it was close to the station, a dangerous place to be. It was not on Christmas day, but they spent the first night in a farmer’s stable, sleeping in the straw, reminding of the location of the nativity scene. One person was 15 when the war broke out and remembers that those years, Christmas was celebrated very modestly. When the war was over, it was her greatest joy to eat an orange again, and chocolate, first looking at it and touching it very gently, hardly believing that it was real. Someone else remembers getting one present on Christmas during the war: an orange. One orange cost about 3€ then, which was an absolute fortune.

- An 80-year old (or: young) woman says her father was the gardener for the lord of the castle. She lived with her parents and brothers and sisters in the gardener’s house on the castle’s property. Already in summer they were looking for the tree which would be the best Christmas tree, marking it with a ribbon around it. Christmas was a time of sitting round the Christmas tree with the whole family and the lord of the castle and his wife.. They put on all the candles and all prayed together. There was a warm family feeling. It was the lord of the castle who gave presents: new clothes. They had good food, sometimes pancakes were made on the stove.

- An 89 year old woman remembers playing gramophones on the ‘His Master’s Voice’ gramophone player. As they were farmers, they slaughtered a pig and made ‘blood sausage’. The rest of the pig went in a copper pot with lots of salt. This way, the meat could be preserved until Easter. They were most happy when there was a lot of snow: then they didn’t have to work on the field. They were working on the field every day, they didn’t have a single day off, there were no weekends or holidays. On New Year’s day, they had to pay the rent for the __whole__ new __year__! Happy New Year!