Post Messenger Recorder -

Each year as a part of Turner Hall's Swiss Heritage Series, they hold a very traditional Christmas tree lighting ceremony on the first Friday of December to coincide with the Swiss festival of St Nicholaus, who in Switzerland is known as Samichlaus. Always accompanying Samichlaus is his helper, Schmutzli, a rather rough, dark and foreboding character, who is actually a good person. But, at times, Schmutzli has to have words with those who fail to tell him the truth about their behavior for the year.

On this Friday night, a pair of Samichlaus's elves were on hand to help the gathered children light the 100 plus candles on the 30-foot tall freshly cut Christmas tree, donated each year by Stan and Donna Oxenreider of Browntown. Once the candles all were lit, Schmutzli asked one of the elves if, or not, he had been a good boy for the year.

This seemingly good elf wasn't perhaps quite as good as he thought he was, telling Schmutzli that he was a good boy for the year. The all-knowing Schmutzli checked his book and found that there had been some incidents of less than stellar behavior on the part of this elf, leading Schmutzli to chase the bad elf around the Christmas tree, much to the delight of the children who had just lit the candles on the Christmas tree.

As the candles were being lit, Deb Krauss Smith relates the story of the Christmas tree and the beginnings of this tradition at Turner Hall. This is a representation of a Christmas past, a time when there wasn't the massive commercialization of Christmas...Christmases that were celebrated in the home, in very modest ways.

Krauss Smith said the tradition of lights on Christmas trees probably began in the 16th century. Martin Luther, the German Theologian, is given credit for first using lights on the Christmas tree in an attempt to describe to his wife and children the beauty of a snow-covered forest under the glittering star-lit night.

As the last candles were lit, the lights in the Great Hall were dimmed, and the filled-to-capacity crowd of elderly, as well as infants, ohh'ed and ahh'ed at the beauty of this beautiful tree. With that, the music began. The first song to be sung was Silent Night in German.

The voices of the crowd were beautiful as the words poured forth filling every nook and cranny with the words:

Stille Nacht, heilge Nacht,

Alles schlaft; einsam wacht

Nur das traute hochheilige Paar.

Holder Knabe im lockigen Haar,

Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh!

Schlaf in himmlischer Ruh!

The Christmas tree lighting ended with the candles being snuffed out and the crowd gathering in small groups for quiet conversations, renewing old acquaintances, and a sampling of Christmas treats provided by Swiss Colony.

On Sunday, December 6th, St. John's United Church of Christ presented their annual Deutscher Weihnachtsgottesdienst (German Christmas Communion Service). St. John's has deep ties to the area, and especially New Glarus.

Founded in August 1862, the first congregation was made up of 12 Monroe families. The five founders of the church included John Kaderly and Peter Spahr, both Monroe tailors, Samuel Schneider, a harness maker, Andreas Lanz, and J.J. Tschudy, who is referred to in St. John's history as, "a man of book and learning, who has served as Green County Register of Deeds."

Tschudy arrived in New Glarus in 1846 as an agent of the Swiss Emigration Society. His duty for the Emigration Society was acting as the land agent for the Swiss government, which fronted the money to purchase the 1,260 acres, which became New Glarus. He also served as the first minister in the new settlement.

When his duties were finished in the mid 1850s, he moved to Dayton for one year before permanently settling in Monroe. He and Fridolin Streiff, one of the three scouts who founded New Glarus, were good friends and business partners. Streiff eventually moved to Monroe and the pair remained friends for the balance of their lives. In the early 1950s, J.J. Tschudy's great-grandson, F.B. Tschudy, became minister at the UCC church in New Glarus.

The first St. John's was a small white wooden church dedicated on August 31, 1862. The new church's first baptism was Samuel Schuler, who was a life-long member. The cost to build this first church was $400. This church was replaced with a new, larger church dedicated on October 12, 1873, costing $2,559. In 1883, three bells, weighing 2,000 pounds, were imported from Switzerland at a cost of $600.

Rev. P.A. Suhuh, from Strasbourg, Alsace, Germany, was brought to St. John's where he served from 1895 until 1938. St. John's continued the church services in German until the 1920s, about the same time many ethnic churches phased out the native language services. In many cases, the phasing out of the first language of the immigrants caused much strife within many churches. At St. John's, Christmas Day communion services were performed in German until 1955.

Rev. Wolfgang Koehler, who began his ministry at St. John's in 1969, reinstituted the German Christmas Day Communion Service. Upon Koehler's retirement in 1981, Rev. Erwin Pegel, a native of Bad Salzuflen, Germany, and minister at the Zwingli UCC in Monticello, took over pastoral duties for the annual German Christmas until his retirement in 1995.

In 2009, the annual German service switched its format and went to a service based on the Festival of the Nine Lessons and Carols. Local native German speakers including Karen Luond Fowdy, Gottlieb Brandli Sr., Gisella Halbheer, Ernst Halbheer, Margarethe Bayer, Heinz Mattmann, Deborah Krauss Smith, Martha Bernet, Hans Bernet and Maria Osborn read the various passages in German. The Monroe Swiss Singers also performed several songs in German.

This years' service began with the Glockenvorspiel (handbell Prelude) doing Stille Nacht, and with each Christmas Carol, the congregants joined in singing in German. The present minister is Todd Hackman, who served until 2013 at the Swiss UCC in New Glarus.