St. Matthew to host German Christmas Service on Sunday

In the home of Inge Wills, an Advent wreath sits in the middle of a table in the den.

The green foliage is adorned with four red candles. One is lit the Sunday four weeks before Christmas with an additional one lit each following Sunday. It is a custom she brought with her to this country many years ago from her native Germany.

In her kitchen, there is a bottle of gluehwein, a German holiday beverage made from red wine and spices.

"It would not be Christmas without it," Wills said.

Sunday will be a special day for the Fortson, Ga., woman and other German natives living in the area. To remind them of their days in the homeland, a unique Christmas service, which is open to the public, will be held at St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran Church on Macon Road in Columbus at 3 p.m.

A sermon by the Rev. Shirley Maria Redmond will be spoken in English, as well as benediction, but practically everything else will be in German.

"The story of Christmas will be read in German and the songs will be sung in German," said Wills, who will lead the service.

Some of the songs such as "Silent Night" and "O Tannenbaum" will be familiar to those non Germans attending, but there will also be lesser known German Christmas songs.

Silent Night was first performed in Austria and O Tannenbaum comes from Germany.

Wills is president of Klub Heimatland in Columbus. Heimatland is German for homeland.

The group has been around since 1974, when it was formed by members of St. Matthew where monthly meetings are still held. Club members help care for the graves of 44 World War II German prisoners of war at the Fort Benning cemetery.

Wills said the group has about 42 members, most of them women. Most came to this country with husbands, who were serving in the military.

"We have been all over the world and settled here," Wills said.

"Columbus grows on you," said Anne MacPhail of Columbus, a member of the club.

MacPhail is looking forward to the Sunday service. "It always brings back many memories," she said.

Another Columbus member, Monika Wright, called the annual ceremony "emotional."

"I will probably cry a bit," she said.

Wills, MacPhail and Wright have all been in the United States for more than 40 years.

The celebration will continue following the service. Sweets will be in abundance.

"There will be gingerbread and butter cookies," Wills said.

There is likely to be some stollen, too.

"It is a wonderful fruitcake shaped like a bundled up baby." Wright explained.

MacPhail said she doesn't bake anymore, but her specialty was apfelcake, a holiday specialty filled with apples.

"My family would quickly eat the whole thing," she said.

The women talked about German Christmas customs.

They said Dec. 6 is St. Nicholas Day. As children, they would put their shoes out instead of stockings. If they had been good, they found treats the next day. If they had been bad, they got coal or a switch.

"I once got a switch," MacPhail said, laughing.

Wills said presents are not opened on Christmas day, but on Christmas Eve.

"The tree is not put up until then," she said. "It is in a closed room. After dinner, the children come in to the room and see the tree."

The presents are out and may not be wrapped.

"We had to stand in front of the tree and sing a song or say a poem before we could get a gift," MacPhail said.

The women remembered tough times around World War II.

"I wouldn't get a new doll for Christmas but I would get some new clothes for the one I had. I might get a new blanket for the doll," Wright recalled.

MacPhail said one year she received just oranges. "I appreciated them," she said.

Wills recalled that when she was a child her father would take her to the opera house to see a Christmas play then the family would go to church.

"There are no Christmas services on Christmas day here," she said.

In small German towns, special Christmas markets open weeks before the holiday where baked goods, decorations and crafts are sold.

Wills said Germans actually celebrate two days of Christmas. "On Christmas Day, we spend time with family. The following day we go and celebrate with our extended family," she said. "It is a lot of Christmas."

This story was originally published December 11, 2015 at 10:52 PM with the headline "St. Matthew to host German Christmas Service on Sunday ."