NRV Holidays
A Christmas Fairyland
Text by Joanne M. Anderson Photos by Kristie Lea Photography The small mountain town of Seiffen, Germany, captivated Jamie Worley like no place she had ever been. “It was like a fairyland,” she remembers. Now a popular international destination for its enchanting setting, lively musicians and highly skilled craftsmen, no one was there when the Worleys visited in 2000. It was in East Germany, and until the Berlin Wall came down in 1991, many of these hamlets and craftsmen were virtually unknown. She and her husband, Tim, were stationed in West Berlin and Stuttgart, Germany, for nine of Tim’s 28 years in the 18
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U.S. Army. “We’d go through Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin for shopping. I never knew what I might find and I did not know places like Seiffen existed.” Jamie saw a small article about the little town in the American military newspaper “Stars and Stripes,” and they decided to go there in 2000. Their story, however, begins back in the Midwest. They met in 1970 at a roommate’s wedding, then held their own wedding two years later in Jamie’s hometown of Romeo, Mich. Tim was working in Indiana as a pharmacist when he decided to go to dental school.
He joined the U.S. Army just before graduating. Their first child was born in Berlin, next one in San Antonio, Texas, and a third one in Newport News, Va. “Tim was afraid to move again because we had a child after every move,” Jamie recalls. Their first Christmas in Blacksburg in 2010 presented the opportunity for Jamie to unpack and set up thousands of Christmas ornaments, and not all from across the ocean. “I discovered Merely Mud (aka Julie Thompson) in Virginia Beach and bought a couple of her pieces. Then, like many
Novemb er/Decemb er 2020
