Branches of Hope and Tree Trunks of Faith: An Immigrant Christmas

Like hundreds of thousands of other German immigrants, Heinrich  had come to this country early in the last century in hopes of finding a better life.  He'd been apprenticed to be a cabinetmaker, and hoped to use his skills to provide for his family.  While he was here his son, Walter, was born--and life looked promising. 

But then news came of a sudden death in Germany, and Heinrich, by now known as Henry, got word that he had inherited a chicken farm in the homeland.  So back he went.  And things went well, at least for a bit.  But it was a time of growing unrest in Germany.  A time when evil was on the rise; when neighbors were being pitted against neighbors by a madman known as Der Fuhrer.  And Henry could not stand the distorted reality called National Socialism.  So he gave up the farm and his inheritance, and with his son Walter in town, returned to America.

They found a tiny attic apartment and scraped by on Henry's meager earnings.  They were good Lutherans, and normally looked forward to Christmas with its special music, and of course, the tree.  After all, wasn't it Luther himself who started the tradition of decorating a pine in honor of Christ's birth?

But money was very tight, and there were other things to worry about.  Still, Henry wanted to keep the tradition alive, if not for himself, then for his eight-year old son.  So he scraped together what little he had, twenty-five cents in all, and went out late on Christmas Eve to look for a tree.  Finally he found a tree seller still open.  He was down to his two last trees.  And a very sorry sight they were!  Both of them were scraggly at best, with only a few branches each.  One of them was as crooked as the Rhine River.  But the second, at least, had a trunk that was straight and true.

Maybe the seller was tired, or eager to get home.  Whatever the case, a deal was struck.  And Henry took both trees for a quarter.

He and his son Walter dragged them home.  And then, undeterred by their scrawniness, and using his carpenter skills, Henry cut the branches off the crooked tree, drilled hole in the trunk of the other, and soon assemble a fine looking specimen.  It was a Christmas tree to make old Martin Luther proud, but it was more than that.  For it was, in retrospect, a symbol, a sign, a reminded that the importance of facing the unexpected twists and turns of life with courage and honesty.  For time and again, Henry did just that.  He embraced the unexpected, and over time, assembled a life that would provide branches of hope, and a tree trunk of faith, not only for young Walter, but for his daughter as well. Henry's granddaughter.  Who told me this story many years later, as we sat one December afternoon in her living room.

My Christmas prayer, for each of you, my dear readers, is that you too might face the unexpected twists and turns of life with courage.  Might you too create branches of hope and tree trunks of faith.

Merry Christmas!