It is autumn in Germany, the leaves have long started to turn into all shades of red and yellow and are now thrown. Walking the place has yet again become a special experience, as on cold, misty and sunless days one moves through these warm colors, causing a gentle noise of rustling leaves with every step one takes. Like in childhood days I look down on the ground while walking and particularly seek the really big piles of leaves to walk through and spread all these colors around me while moving on.
Time of harvesting is already over and it comes to my mind, that as kids we used to grab one white well shaped sugar-beet each from the ones piled up at the edges of fields where they are poured by the harvesting machines to then at a time be further processed to become cattle forage. Each of us would carefully select our best sized beet and proudly carry it home. We would cut off the green and make the beet stand well all by itself. Then we would also cut the jelly-bag-cap -shaped tip and set it aside. After that the hard work starts: We would carve the beet with a knife and a spoon, digging down as far as our little fingers would permit us to do. Finally a scaring or smiling face was to be cut into the beet. A little candle be placed inside and lit and the jelly-bag-cap put back on top. These pale-dirty-white but illuminated little "monster beets" are the "Rübengeister", which were then to be placed accurately in our home's windows. The sallow glow of candlelight glinting in the caved sugar-beets conjured an occult and mysterious mood that is penetratingly accompanied by the strong odor of charred beet pod.
By this we kids made sugar-beet goblins visible in our homes. The spooky faces, the scaring grimaces and the play of glinting glow and shadow have always been expression of the growing awareness that wights of nights enter when darkness takes over. Traditions like these were at home in central Europe even earlier to Christianization. The fact that time of darkness noticeably increases until midwinter-night on December 21 gave rise to all kinds of traditions that go with such creatures of the dark. And these again differ from region to region. Some sugar-beet goblins would indeed merely be placed in windows, others would be presented on sticks in fearsome night processions. Some are meant to scare while others would protect homes and houses. Still others are considered the spooky ghosts of former owners or the builders. They however all have in common that they are being celebrated at this depressing dark time of year, the time of All Saints and All Souls.
It seems a human logic to reflect on finiteness of the fleshly life, on fugacity and inevitability of death in times of cold and lack of light. So the coincidence of pagan with Christian traditions cannot really be a accidental. What however is a surprise to me is that so many regionally authentic traditions have faded and given way to foreign, American ones. Upon walking in rustling warm-colored autumn foliage I wonder where all the sugar-beet-goblins have gone, as I no longer see them in windows. Instead there are numberless Hokkaido-pumpkins in flamboyant orange visible everywhere. Be it the actual pumpkins or decoration pumpkins made of wood, china, plastic or whatever thinkable material. And nowadays German "trick-or-treat-kids" in fancy costumes roam the streets.
Likewise is the same with "Santa Claus," who was never at home in Germany. Germans have ever since celebrated St. Nikolaus, the Greek bishop of Myra, on December 6 and the birth of the Christ child on December 24. The "Christkind," the Christchild, today is still recognizable in the "Christkindels Markt" but in Advent the streets are covered with sitting, climbing, hanging, big, small, skinny and whatever else "Santas."
All of these make me wonder why the own traditions, the own identity is in a way sacrificed to a foreign one. It makes me question if humans are easy and ready to follow trends rather than to maintain authentic culture, or if these chances also go with a loss of meaning, the loss of knowledge about our roots and who we are. Maybe however it is just the ongoing development, the inevitable changes of proceeding life. Maybe it is nothing but a natural consequence of a world growing closer and I should not bother about it. Yet upon walking the streets in my place I miss a piece of who I, a German, am. I miss the sugar-beet-goblins, the "Rübengeister" which the Hokkaidos and the Santas can never replace.