The snow continued to fall covering the peaks and slopes all the way down to the villages along the Rhine River. Christmas was beginning to approach and all the people of the little village began to prepare for festivities. They celebrate Christmas a bit different in Liechtenstein.
The Christmas season starts around December 6th or 7th. A friend or family member, dressed as St. Nicholas or Santa Claus, visits each home and tells the children who have been good and who has been bad. The gleeful children then tell St. Nicholas what they want the “Christkindli”, the Christmas Angel, to bring them on Christmas Eve. It is an angel, and not Santa Claus, who brings presents on Christmas Eve. Two weeks before Christmas, the tree is set up. It is decorated on Christmas Eve and presents are put under it, ready for the coming Christmas morning.
In the excitement of the festive season, the giant and his good deeds were soon forgotten. But not by two children. Gretchen and Karl remembered and each made a Christmas special present for the giant. Karl carved a toy soldier out of pine wood while Gretchen embroidered a small piece of Lace with a Christmas scene. They continued to leave food out for the giant but he never returned to claim the food. They began to worry that something had happened to the giant. Their parents, while concerned, tried to placate them with the thought that the giant had moved on to warmer climes. But the children knew better. Once in a while they thought that they had caught glimpses of him high up on the snow-covered slopes. In the innocent way of children, they wondered what he was going to do for Christmas, all alone up there in the cold and snow. Would the Christmas Angel also visit him?
St. Nicholas came and visited all the children. Everyone went out and got their Christmas tree.
The Day before Christmas arrived and the twins went out to play with some friends on the other side of the village. At least that is what they told their parents. But the children had a plan. They had secretly brought their gifts for the giant and planned to seek out the giant’s cave while their father chopped and trimmed the tree. They knew from listening to the old men telling tales around the fireside at night that it was commonly thought the giant had taken up residence in one of the caves on the upper slopes above the village. The twins planned to look for the cave that day and leave their presents there for the giant. They were sure that it was just up the mountain a ways and they would be back well before dark. The children quickly disappeared up the snow-covered tree slope and just as quickly became lost.
