15. The „Ježíšek“Problem: the Big Christmas Confusion

Ihad to a problem yesterday. I needed to my son about something that happened at their camp. Like any normal child, my daughter tends to act up

But yesterday she that the teacher and threatened her. My son quoted the teacher as saying: „If you don’t settle down, I will tell Ježíšek about your behaviour.“

Ježíšek is Baby Jesus and the Christmas Spirit who brings presents to Czech boys and girls. So, the teacher’s threat is the same as an American teacher threatening to tell Santa or a British teacher threatening to tell Father Christmas. She simply wanted to scare my daughter into behaving. It might sound like a „ but it had the potential to bring on complications.

Our family is mixed culture, German

nontroversy“,

so and British, so we already have two Christmas entities: Father Christmas and Christ Child. We told the kids that when we are in the UK Father Christmas brings us presents and when we were in Germany, Christ Child brought them presents. Though my son is naturally bright and inquisitive, he was content with this explanation. But now I have to introduce another Christmas character called „Ježíšek“. Christ Child and Ježíšek are essentially the same, just like Saint Nicholas and Santa Claus. But Sam doesn’t understand why a different Christmas spirit brings us presents in the Czech Republic. It was equally as hard to explain why they got presents on December 25th, while their Czech friends received presents on December 24th.

Christmas is a magical time of year for children and I never wanted to ruin that. So I told him that Christ Child and Ježíšek are the same spirit. I explained that Ježíšek couldn’t be in two places at once, so this was why he delivered presents in the Czech Republic on the 24th and in Germany on the 25th. My son accepted the explanation, but if we are still in Prague next Christmas, he will expect to receive presents on December 24th.