German community celebrates songs of Christmas season
The Immanuel Lutheran Church brought people together to sing Christmas carols in their mother tongue, German, for their annual German language service of Lessons and Carols, Sunday afternoon.
Keeping the old German Christmas traditions alive, Immanuel Church’s German language service brings people from surrounding communities together to celebrate the holidays, the way they used to.
“We started this in 2002, so this is our 16th year, and the first time that we did it there was about 50 people that showed up and we have had as many as 200 in the years since,” says Walter Egli, Immanuel Lutheran Church volunteer.
“We have some of them travel a really long ways to come to it, we have some come up from Blackie, Rocky Mountain House, Medicine Hat, a lot of people that just like to sing the songs in their mother tongue.”
The service had musical guests Daryna Friesen, Jacqueline Friesen and Terra Friesen who helped get the attendees’ festive spirits up. Egli says that the ceremony isn’t just a way to get people into the holiday spirit in a traditional form, but to also give some of the guests a reflection on old memories.
“Immanuel has always had a strong German tradition so it sort of came out of that in a sense that we wanted to bring something back that maybe was historical to give people to remember what they sang in their mother tongues as kids; they come back from memories,” says Egli.
Immanuel Lutheran Church not only brought the German community together to celebrate Christmas with carols, but also encouraged people who attended the free service to donate items or money to support the Interfaith Food Bank.
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