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npub1myx…n2z7
2023-12-06 00:20:06

Mar on Nostr: Last one for #TuneTuesday and I'll stop with the Christmas music. This one song is in ...

Last one for #TuneTuesday and I'll stop with the Christmas music.

This one song is in memory of my grandma. We lived in the same house until I was five. I spent every Christmas at her house until I moved to the US. The song I'm sharing is "Oh Tannenbaum" (Oh Christmas Tree). It was her favorite.

She was born in the Netherlands before WWI and moved out of Europe with her husband and two young children towards the end of WWII. They wanted to go to the US but the borders were already closed for Europeans, so they Ianded in South America. And they stayed there.

I can only imagine what she felt as a mom with two little kids. But every Christmas, when we sat down to eat the imported European cookies, the aged cheeses, the marzipan, all things they bought only for Christmas, she would tell stories. And my dad and aunt would join in.

Through the years I heard stories of how my aunt ended up terrified for life of ambulance sirens, always thinking they were being bombed. Stories of my dad hiding in a small closet when troops walked by. Or why the factory where grandpa worked never got bombed (hint: it had German investors). But mostly, how they had settled in a country they didn't know and slowly built up a new life.

And we'll always put some music and sing. I only knew the songs in Spanish, but grandma had two LP albums in German, which somehow I inherited and still listen to this time of the year

When I listen to this song, I can see her sitting in her chair, singing softly to it, her face illuminated with a glow of joy.

I remember who am I. I remember I am only a passerby in this thing we call time.

https://youtu.be/GCL-V_G83NY?si=Y7inHA7x-YBcdcu9
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