Janine celebrates Christmas
Janine celebrates Christmas is a short story by Werner Wollenberger . It has been published in many anthologies on the Christmas season .
content
With the sentences “When is Christmas? They say December 24th, maybe 25th. I always believed that […] ”the narrator introduces the report about an incident that is supposed to have actually happened. In the summer of 1958 an eight-year-old girl named Janine fell ill with leukemia in a small village in the Jura . The doctor, who made the diagnosis in September, gave Janine a maximum of two months to live and can only advise the parents to make the last weeks of their life as beautiful as possible for the terminally ill child. But Janine doesn't want any presents or travel; her only wish is to celebrate Christmas again, as beautifully as possible and with everything that goes with it. At first glance, however, this seems to be the only wish that Janine cannot fulfill, because in all probability she will not live to see December 24th.
Finally, Janine's father and the village teacher decide to convince the child that Christmas will take place earlier this year, namely on December 2nd; Easter is not always on the same date. Janine is finally convinced of this, but now the men have to deal with several problems: Christmas requires a lot of preparations, and above all, they find that Christmas means that everyone celebrates it. So the baker in the village is now being persuaded to bake his gingerbread hearts earlier than usual and to display his Christmas window decorations ahead of time. The remaining businessmen in the small village join in after some reluctance; the school and kindergarten children are told that Christmas falls on December 2nd this year, and that the private Christmas preparations in the individual families are brought forward by a few weeks. Even the pastor decides to anticipate the Christmas liturgy . Janine celebrates Christmas with everything that goes with it, even with the right radio program, which is provided by an electrician who has laid a line from the house next door through which he now plays suitable records.
Janine dies two days after the party. The story ends with the words: "On December 24, 1958, Christmas was no longer celebrated in this small Jura village."
reception
Janine celebrates Christmas was published in the 1969 Christmas book Be welcome, beautiful star by Gertrud Mielitz. The story is used in school and confirmation classes and has also been published in Braille , among other things . There is a series of audio images from Friedemann Schuchardt for Janine celebrates Christmas from 1979. The short film Fast a Christmas story by Werner Zeindler, in which the seven-year-old protagonist is called Edith, is based on Wollenberger's story.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gertrud Mielitz (ed.), Be welcome to us, beautiful star , Verlag Ernst Kaufmann 1969
- ↑ School teaching material for Janine celebrates Christmas
- ^ Draft for a confirmation lesson in: Günter-Manfred Pracher, Confirmation lesson on biblical foundations. Lesson Drafts, Volume 1 , Grin Verlag 2012, ISBN 978-3-656-14033-7, p. 40 ff.
- ↑ Catalog of the Deutsche Blindenstudienanstalt e. V. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Janine celebrates Christmas. A series of audio images based on a story by Werner Wollenberger , Calwer Verlag, Stuttgart 1979, ISBN 3-7668-0923-7
- ^ AV media office of the Archdiocese of Vienna
- ^ Achim Klünder, Lexikon der Fernsehspiele , Munich / London 1991, ISBN 978-3598108365 , p. 165
