The big night for German Christmas is the 24th, as the Christkind is bringing the presents that evening and for the first time the Christmas tree is revealed, in most cases lit with real candles.
In the early evening there is excitement in the whole house. People are wrapping presents, putting on their Sunday best or practicing one last time Stille Nacht on their instrument.
Mother is looking beautiful already nicely dressed, in the kitchen putting finishing touches on our dinner: Smoked Ham with Sauerkraut.
In the early years we only had a little radio in the kitchen tuned to the classic station SDR 2. Of course they would play all Christmas music that night.
When Transeamus (Let us cross over) came on, my mother would run and turn up the volume, as she really liked it. She told us, that our Grandfather had loved Transeamus too. He once told my mom, that it needs deep male voices to bring the beauty of the song across. Checking YouTube, I don’t think that any of these do it justice. The closest I could find are the Cathedral Singers on last.fm or Gotlob Frick on Amazon. They all have nice voices, but are they really feeling it? Doesn’t come across.
Of course I love Transeamus now too and am really surprised, how few people even know about it. I always check every Christmas CD that I get my hand on and I have not seen it even once in the US. Its lack of popularity is probably because it is written in Latin.
Merry Christmas.