St. Martin
Nov. 12th, 2014 06:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sister_luckI love festivals of lights - I absolutely adore the warm glow of bonfires, paper lanterns, candles, carved pumpkins or turnips.
The area I live in is big on St. Martin and I am bringing you this year's selection of pictures.
This year the kids in kindergarten decided to mix festivals - their handmade lantern for St. Martin was heavily inspired by that other festival, Halloween, which has a bad reputation here because it is seen as commercial and American.
I must confess that at first I did not recognize these as lanterns - without a light in them and in daylight I took them for baskets for collecting Halloween candy. I was a bit confused as to why our fairly traditional kindergarten had made decorations for Halloween with the kids.
In this picture you can see the first lantern the kid made in kindergarten (and it is the one I like best):
I am getting a bit wistful here because this was the kid's last St. Martin in kindergarten - next year he'll be part of a much larger celebration at primary school.
In the background of the picture you might also spot a musical instrument. We had a small group of musicians accompanying us on our walk through the allotments. We were meant to sing along to the traditional St. Martin songs, but I must confess that this year I really had problems remembering the words - we shall not speak about holding the tune - I am hopeless in that regard.
Because it was not raining we were able to have the most important part outside: the re-enactment of the story of St. Martin - with Roman soldier's uniform.
I didn't get a good picture of him sharing his coat with the beggar, but you all know the story, don't you?
This was the bonfire (and a lantern):
There was mulled wine for the grown-ups, hot fruit punch & cocoa for the kids, and for all of us wonderfully soft Weckmänner.
The area I live in is big on St. Martin and I am bringing you this year's selection of pictures.
This year the kids in kindergarten decided to mix festivals - their handmade lantern for St. Martin was heavily inspired by that other festival, Halloween, which has a bad reputation here because it is seen as commercial and American.
I must confess that at first I did not recognize these as lanterns - without a light in them and in daylight I took them for baskets for collecting Halloween candy. I was a bit confused as to why our fairly traditional kindergarten had made decorations for Halloween with the kids.
In this picture you can see the first lantern the kid made in kindergarten (and it is the one I like best):
I am getting a bit wistful here because this was the kid's last St. Martin in kindergarten - next year he'll be part of a much larger celebration at primary school.
In the background of the picture you might also spot a musical instrument. We had a small group of musicians accompanying us on our walk through the allotments. We were meant to sing along to the traditional St. Martin songs, but I must confess that this year I really had problems remembering the words - we shall not speak about holding the tune - I am hopeless in that regard.
Because it was not raining we were able to have the most important part outside: the re-enactment of the story of St. Martin - with Roman soldier's uniform.
I didn't get a good picture of him sharing his coat with the beggar, but you all know the story, don't you?
This was the bonfire (and a lantern):
There was mulled wine for the grown-ups, hot fruit punch & cocoa for the kids, and for all of us wonderfully soft Weckmänner.
