The past is always longer, at least the Royal Bavarian District Court, which is commonly regarded as the good old past. The dark past that followed is also moving further and further away, the last contemporary witnesses are approaching a hundred.
Now rock’n ‘roll is earlier, Franz Josef Strauss anyway and even “Wetten dass ..?”. When Thomas Gottschalk invites you to a revival these days, people are already indulging in blissful Saturday evening memories for which it is actually still too early to seriously talk about the past. What is certain is that the further the past moves into the past, the more the transfiguration takes hold, as if everything had really been better in the past.
An example of this was recently seen when the former Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber turned 80. And even people who had previously harshly criticized him for his austerity measures, his administrative reforms, his notorious lack of punctuality suddenly sighed with a slightly transfigured look: “Mei, the Edmund …”
Stoiber belongs to the generation that can still tell how it used to be, when we hardly had anything. When there was no money for Christmas tree balls, and instead apples hung on the fir tree and walnuts and homemade straw stars. The doll under the tree was cleared away after a few days and given away to the children the following year. And if you were lucky, you got a pair of hand-knitted socks.
These memories should teach humility between mountains of gifts, roast goose and sausages. The Christmas lockdown last year was more effective when some saw the value of the festival. This could continue this year. Again, it is advisable to meet as few people as possible – and now even consumption could stall.
There are worldwide delivery bottlenecks, so not all bike models are available as they used to be, as well as game consoles, cell phones, sneakers. Even books are becoming scarce due to the lack of paper. And now even Christmas geese are said to be rare because of the bird flu.
A Christmas party in all modesty? It would be worth a try. If only because it gives a nice story from the past later.