By Peter Kovarik
At Christmas I have no resistance to the virus of nostalgia. The bearer of Christmas gifts in my old Catholic country is not Santa Claus, but a Baby Jesus (Ježišek). Recently born and still naked, on Christmas Eve he slips unseen into people’s homes, ignores the dirty chimney and deposits his goodies right under the tree.
A few days before such a day, my dad came home with a rare catch: a live carp and a very energetic pike. After a vendor on the street fished them from an ice encrusted barrel, they went straight into our bathtub. Bathing in our house was suspended, but that was fine with me; for I loved watching pike chase the carp, just as it was his job back at home at the pond. My mom and my older sister busied themselves in the kitchen as they kept pulling dozens of Christmas cookies out of the oven. A pastry shop somewhere on Montmartre wouldn’t smell any better.
Christmas Eve day came. Mom put on her apron and with a swing of cleaver sent both fishes to their post-holiday heaven. Bathing could resume. Later we sat down for dinner of fried fish with potato salad and a fish soup cooked with the fishes’ heads (no sir, not my favorite). Traditional Czech Vánočka , a sweet braided bread with raisins followed (originally the delicious Jewish Challah, appropriated by the people in Central Europe centuries ago).
We all liked music, so when the time came for singing Christmas carols, we were ready. I sat on my piano bench and together we sang ancient folk carols. My tone-deaf dad was mercifully sent to kitchen to prepare eggnog.
By a magic signal, Ježišek let us know he completed his visit, and we hurried to see what he left for us. Times were not generous for anybody in a war wrecked Europe, with WWII just a few years behind. But our parents did their best and I was very happy with the hand-down skis and an almost new construction set. (My mom hoped I would become an engineer, a wish I shamefully never fulfilled.) Mom, the family’s only practicing Catholic, excused herself and headed to a nearby Gothic Cathedral for a midnight Mass. I wondered what happens to the Christmas if the naked baby Jesus catches pneumonia.
