Come
December, the mood sets in with the advent of cold breeze, church anthems,
twinkling embellishments and all other rituals that softly carry us through the
month and reach a crescendo on the eve of day of Nativity. But we drifted into
that extraordinarily special mood even before seven months when we visited
Frankenmuth, a small, thinly populated, quiet town in Michigan. It seems half
of its population ( around 5000 only) has German connextions. The Bavarian
hospitality renewed and refreshed the visitors’ memories of the celebration all
along the year. A host of celebrations await visitors here throughout the year.
As we strolled leisurely into Bronner’s
Christmas Wonderland, supposed to be the
largest Christmas store in the world, which houses the innumerable images
of December, we were transported into another world of light and music.
Thousands of souvenirs awaited patronage but visitors seemed a little hesitant
because of their fancy tags. Christmas trees of all colours and all the possible concepts of gift giving came
alive in front of your eyes. Tempted to make all of them our own, we walked out
empty handed and wandered to a stone chapel nearby. The familiar Christmas
carol,
Silent Night wafted all around
us and as we walked on, we saw the song inscribed
in small stones in all the languages of the world. The story of the origin of
the song was printed in pamphlets kept in the chapel – how the song was
originally played to the accompaniment of a guitar since the church organ was
under repair. We returned to the city for a night ride. Though the store was
closed at 5.30 p.m. the night was bright and colourful with decorations
everywhere. To crown it all, a hot air balloon show, which attracted a huge
crowd awaited us. The hot glow of fire was some comfort to us since the sudden
chill wind caught us unawares. The cold weather went hand in hand with the December
setting. With a sense of accomplishment and good fortune, I took leave of this
town with many tales to share with my family and friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment