Ein Weihnachtsfeier in San Antonio

Weihnachtsfeier is Deutsch (German) for "Christmas Party". And I attended a hum-dinger of a party yesterday evening, here in San Antonio!

Annually, a big event for the San Antonio Conservation Society is this German Christmas Party, celebrated in the Steves Homestead mansion, built 1876. The front balcony is hung with gracefully curving Christmas garlands, and poinsettias and a Santa statuette grace the front porch. And inside the historic home of Edward and Johanna Steves there are plenty of Christmas trees of all sizes and decorating. Late in the party I discover that one of the smaller trees, set on an antique table, was done in an old style, of painting feathers green and wrapping them around a small stick to form the branches (the feathers bushed out as they were wound). These were hung with some decorations that had belonged to Johanna Steves (the Homestead's initial "lady of the house"). A couple were of tin, such as an angel and some "icicles"; they were definitely ornaments that would have gone back to her life time (died 1930s). Other ornaments were of thin glass, many with hollows in them lined with silvery fluting. These immediately caused me to remember ornaments I hung on our family Christmas tree as a boy!

There was food everywhere, in almost all the main-floor rooms: cookies, finger sandwiches and fixin's for other small sandwiches (using small croissants), cakes and other pastries and fruit. Yum-m-m, yum! For liquid refreshment we had coffee, wines white and red -- and a superb eggnog with had added ingredients of ice cream and Jack Daniel. M-m-m, hm-m-m!

As I surveyed the large crowd in attendance -- probably 90% of the ground floor space not already occupied by furnishings had folk standing -- I could tell that this is definitely the best-attended member meeting of the year for the Conservation Society. And as I noticed how many were garbed in Christmas apparel items (sweaters, ties, etc.) I decided to roam the crowd and count how many men were wearing, like me, a Christmas necktie. I probably counted a few ties twice so let's just say, dear reader, that it was in the lower twenties out of about 30-35 men.

In one of the front rooms, which had a floor-to-ceiling Christmas tree in a side bay window and a grand piano, there was singing. A couple of Afro-American fellows, including a talented piano player, and two Anglo young ladies regaled us with Christmas carols and songs. None in Deutsch, alas! But on the ornate center table of that room were printed booklets that contained scores with lyrics of popular carols, and we of the crowd got to sing along. And I lu-u-u-v to sing!

This evening Weihnachtsfeier was simply a supreme delight for yours truly. As I sat eating some goodies next to another male member of the Society "tied" for Christmas, I mentioned that I could have come last year, having been granted associate membership, but that the date had somehow passed me by. (Easy to do in the busy month of December, right?)

"Well, you'll have to make up for lost time, then," he suggested.

"I'm doing my best!" was my reply.

Fröhliche Weihnachten! Merry Christmas, y'all!