Christkindl in Eastern Iowa

Children placing boots by the door on Christmas Eve

Christkindl came to eastern Iowa the way December storms did—quietly at first, then all at once. By the 1860s, the river towns of Davenport, Guttenberg, Elkader, and the communal streets of Amana carried the sound of German carols through the cold air, and it was hard to tell where old-world memory ended and new-world habit began.

The newspapers rarely explained the holiday. They assumed everyone already knew. When they mentioned it, they spoke in plain sentences. A Davenport editor said , “The German families prepare for Christkindl as their parents did before them.”

 

Children placed boots outside their doors on Christmas Eve. Big boots, if they had them. Little ones polished until they reflected lamplight. The Christkindl—not Santa, not St. Nicholas, but something more gentle—was said to slip inside the houses after the family had gone to bed. “The Christ-child brings the gifts,” the Iowa Reform explained, “and no child should seek to spy upon its coming.” Parents repeated the rule with the solemnity of a town ordinance.

 

Singing Christmaskindl Carols in Elkader

The Christkindl story had changed over the years. In Germany, the gift-bringer had been shaped by the Reformation. In Iowa, he or she was whatever families needed—a symbol, a messenger, an angelic presence that fit easily into small wooden houses and lived comfortably among the smell of yeast and pine.

The bakeries began their preparations early. In Guttenberg, the ovens glowed for weeks. Springerle—white, crisp, anise-scented—were pressed with wooden molds worn smooth by use. The Guttenberg paper described the aroma without ornament: “The springerle give forth a perfume that is unmistakably of the season.”

 

Lebkuchen came next. Molasses, honey, cloves, cinnamon, all mixed into dough dark enough to match an Iowa December. Davenport’s German-language papers mentioned them often. “Fresh lebkuchen is found in every good household,” one noted. “It comforts the young and the old alike.” If any line captured the spirit of Christkindl in Iowa, that was probably it.

 

Excited children on Davenport streets on Christmas morning

Carols were the part of the night people remembered longest. Families in Elkader lit candles early, gathering in parlors or kitchens. The songs came from memory. “Ihr Kinderlein Kommet” drifted out of houses along the Turkey River with a calm, steady rhythm. Another favorite, “Leise rieselt der Schnee,” felt nearly made for Iowa winters long before the song reached the prairies. People sang in German without apology. Iowa newspapers heard the music and wrote politely about it: “The German friends celebrate with song,” one editor wrote, “and their melodies carry pleasantly down the street.”

 

In Amana, the tradition was quieter. The community there did not use Santa figures or elaborate decorations. Their Christkindl season centered on singing, prayer, and the shared preparation of food. One visitor in the 1880s described the evening this way: “There is no clamor, only the sound of voices in harmony.” Amana’s approach made the other German settlements seem lively by comparison, but the meaning stayed the same.

 

Children in all these towns waited with hushed excitement. Christkindl was not loud. It did not bang down chimneys. Parents told their children, “You must be asleep, or it will pass you by.” The Lutheran Herald once put it more gently: “The Christ-child visits only peaceful houses.” Children took that seriously.

 

Lebkuchen and Lantern light in Amana Colonies

Boots filled slowly during the night. A handful of nuts. A piece of chocolate if the family could spare it. A few springerle wrapped in paper. A small wooden toy, sometimes carved from leftover scraps in the shed. A bright orange, now and then, was almost extravagant—German newspapers noted its appearance with satisfaction: “Some children were presented with fruits from the South, a rare joy.”

When the morning came, the celebrations were quiet but not solemn. Children burst outside into the frost, boots held high, shouting rival inventories to one another. “I received nuts!” “I have a horse carved from oak!” “The Christkindl brought me sweet breads!” The gift lists were short but delivered happily.

 

Adults gathered later in the morning, trading simple New Year’s wishes even before the year had turned. The Davenport papers noted it every winter: “Our German citizens keep Christmas Eve with their customary hospitality,” one wrote, “and no one leaves hungry.” That was true. In eastern Iowa, German kitchens were famous for refusing to let anyone go without something warm in hand.

 

The carols returned in the afternoon. In Guttenberg, families walked to the bluffs just to hear how the sound carried. In Elkader, the church choirs rehearsed pieces that most parishioners already knew by heart. A minister once described the music from the pulpit: “It is the voice of Christmas among us.” He didn’t pretend it was anything more complex.

 

Even the towns that were not primarily German learned the pattern. Outsiders who married into German families picked it up quickly. Leave the boots by the door. Do not stay awake. Do not make the gift-giver noisy or large. Let the holiday be gentle.

Christmas trees were another old world tradition German immigrants brought to  places like Dubuque, Davenport, and Burlington in the 1830s and 1840s. Back home, they’d grown up with evergreen trees brought indoors and lit with candles. When they did the same thing in Iowa, their neighbors didn’t know what to think.

 

By the 1890s, the Christkindl celebration had settled into eastern Iowa life so firmly that newspapers no longer treated it as news. It became a line in the holiday roundup, somewhere between church socials and school programs. “The German children received their Christ-child gifts last evening,” one paper wrote in 1894. “All were well pleased.” That was all the editor needed to say.

 

For the families who practiced it, Christkindl was never about spectacle. It wasn’t about the loudest lights or the biggest gifts. It was about continuity—one night each year when the old world and the new sat comfortably in the same room, sharing the warmth of the stove and the fragrance of lebkuchen.

In the old country, St. Nicholas had a helper whose job was to remember the bad stuff. His name was Knecht Ruprecht. In Iowa, the name didn’t stick, but the job did. He wasn't mentioned by name, more as a reminder of what happened to children who didn't listen or follow the rules.

 

Eastern Iowa didn’t keep every tradition that came across the ocean. But it kept this one—softly, steadily, and long enough that children grew into parents who repeated the same old lines in the same cold rooms.

And that was enough.