Epiphany

I mean the feast day--not the generic word. For those who may not know, let me explain. Epiphany is celebrated on 6 Jan in many parts of the world. It is a Holy Day of Obligation for Catholics [to be treated just as Sunday]. For many cultures it is the day of the gift-giving of the Season. It celebrates the three Wise Men's arrival to the Christ Child. Epiphany, or showing.

Sicilian and many Southern Italian children [and their descendants] celebrate the day by receiving gifts and baked goods from La Befana [or the old witch]. Tomie De Paola did a beautiful rendition of the story which I highly recommend called Old Befana.

In our family we keep the tradition--mostly because when my big kids were little and it was their Dad's turn to have them for Christmas, I wanted to have the holiday with them anyway. Part of the tradition is also to give out gifts to those who serve you [like the mailman etc. during te year as well].

This year I am falling back into old habits of not getting packages or even cards mailed out in a timely manner. So, it is for Epiphany, not Christmas. So it is not late. So there. Oh, except for Sariah's birthday present. [but you'll really like it!]

Surely I'm not the only one who needs to celebrate Epiphany...am I?

Christmas--post Nativity

The Nativity Enactment has been two years in the creating, and has completed its first run. We did 8 performances in 2 nights, plus 2 run throughs as a final dress reh with audience from our familes. We had tickets out for 50 people per perf, but averaged over 60 per perf. It is the talk of the town. As a missionary effort, it has already paid off. As a community event, it has already been requested a repeat next year [fully intended.] And our new stake president is much more supportive, so perhaps we'll get some stake monies to help out next year. This year, we squeezed every auxilary budget as much as possible and then some!

We are looking forward to having other activities again--once the final clean-up is done. We had a ward FHE tonight, unfortunately not enough attended to get it all done, but we're getting there. I'm glad I won't see the garbage men's faces when they go to unload our dumpsters this week--over full for tomorrow, and then we'll fill them right up again for the Thurs pick-up!

Stage sets are stored in Bishop Hay's barn, costumes upstairs in our chapel, props divided between the two, and life continues.

Now to get ready for our family Christmas...I haven't even begun---Domani! Richard has just the one final, so he can take me shopping. and Erica gets home Wed! I did my Christamas cards over Thanksgiving, but am unable to find them...does this mean I start over? yipes!

And I AM going to make farfalette dolci for Epiphany this year--but haven't even started Christmas baking yet. Better get busy, eh?

We Did It!

We really did it! Tonight was final dress rehearsal for the Canal Wincester Ward's Presentation of A Nativity Enactment. It really came off quite well, and the audience response was quite good. Ticket are free and so popular that we "sold out" over a week ago. So we voted to add an additional performance on Sat starting earlier--so instead of three overlapping performances we'll have four. Then that sold out within two days. When the Mission President called for tickets, there were none! So a deal was struck. If we could keep the missionaries who are participating out late, we could add a fourth perf to Fri night. He agreed, and last I heard, that's sold out, too! So members in participating wards were encouraged to come tonight for one of two run-throughs. I followed along so as to see the whole show and evaluate technical stuff like lighting that had not been done {It rained the night of our scheduled tech reh. and I had come home and collapsed, and decided as we couldn't do what needed to be done, I'd just stay where I was. Good decision. } So I know what has to be done for tomorrow and my lighting guy is fixing it just how I want, my sound guy is reducing the almost 3 1/2 minute Hallelujah Chorus to one minute [we just don't have enough angels outside for the full thing, there's simply not enough to look at for that long.] We decided not to do a big backdrop for the Road to Bethlahem scene--just a few trees against the brick wall, Mary on a donkey with Joseph leading is quite enough. The courtyard of the Inn looks great except that the door opens the wrong way. [It was built for a different set-up, but we changed it due to weather constraints, and the director decided she liked that the audience cannot see into the Inn at all. Looks stupid, but, hey, it's just one of the little things, and Miranda Steed as the Innkeeper's daughter [part written for her] is great. I have a few things to tweak tomorrow, but am mostly ready. Mostly because we eliminated a few other details that were just too much this year. Less is more.

But our gym that looked like "Betzy's sweat shop" for months, now is a Judean Marketplace. The Roman guards try to flirt with the nice Jewish girls, but are constantly rebuffed. The guards hassell us in the old crones quarter...but can only go so far. When I sat in as apothecary, I had lots of fun coming up with remedies for ailments of all sorts. The little children thought my bird skull most scary! [Thank you owl pellet disecting in science teacher's workshop!] The dried herbs hanging overhead are a bit creepy as well, so the young mostly stayed away from my area--the wood and toy shop certainly dreww them, as did the silk and rug sellers. Our butcher [Bishop Keller] was having way too much fun with his meat cleaver and his [pre-cut] meats and cheeses--his meatcleaver was made last night of cardboard and tin foil. [I spent the morning melting down donated candles to make cheese wheels] All the soldier boys have beautiful swords--or at least hilts, made by Bishop Agler. But there were also several real swords --used by responsible adults. Tho. our new bishop, Jon Hay[our Viking] wanted a two headed battleaxe, but was talked out of being a blood-thirsty Viking as he is in the angel choir!

So, we've gone from a bishop who wears Willie Nelson braids [halloween] to one with Viking horns! And he says he's going to keep them on his desk when the show is over. Most of us are really glad it's about to be over, but it has and is a worthwhile thing to do. Our goal was to help educate the community that we really are Christian. We wanted to do a little missionary work. Already we are having people involved with the missionaries who have not been receptive before--new members getting involved, members getting reactivated, non-member family joining in, etc. So I think we have a success on our hand. And soon it will be over. Thank goodness. Bishop Hay has declared next Mom as a Ward FHE night to deep clean the chapel before the official deep cleaning on the 22nd the the church custodial people are coming in for. A few of us are excused--like me. We're supposed to take the evening off and rest. :)

Pictures will be forthcoming--including, as Lura put it "Dad in a play? This we've got to see!"