Lantern Party

Rob put together another St. Martin's day lantern-making party to celebrate a reluctant bishop. We had about 50 people show up, and everyone made paper lanterns. Some were very traditional and some were really creative. [and totally off topic here, but Will and Logan, above, are both in 4th grade. In fact, Will is actually 14 months younger than Logan. Lest you think that I exaggerate about how monstrous large my children are. The first thing Sebi's kindergarten teacher said at his parent/teacher conference was "Sebi is huge. I saw him walk in and I thought 'oh, I've got a repeater in here' but no, he's just huge." end of tangent]

I really like Kaisa's lantern here. It looks traditional to me. I was also thrilled to see several more hedgehogs patterned after mine (it's a great pattern, though he's looking tired after three years).
Then we went out, lit them up, and walked around singing lantern songs. Tasha, above, just got her mission call to the Berlin, Germany mission, where we just sent Lillian, another of our Vienna study abroaders from this summer. Congrats to Tasha! We're excited for her, and also for McKay, who is going to Ventura, California Spanish-speaking. The man is going to enjoy some fantastic food (he does wherever he goes, and his enthusiasm is contagious. His strudels are better than mine now)!
Everyone sang as they walked, and walked, and walked, and this year we remembered matches and lighters (yay!). Cindy and I fell behind with two babies, three lanterns and one stroller to lug up the stairs, but we had a nice discussion about Michael Pollan and the politics of eating. People appeared to have a good time, but the highest compliment came from a German native student who said "This is just like my childhood!"
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Comments

Zina said…
How cool! I don't think they do this in the Walloon part of Belgium.

I want to see the hedgehog.
Johanna said…
oh ,that reminds me when i was a kid. i grew up in the western part of germany .walking with the lantern ,singing st.martin songs . st. martin´s drama in the katholic church . and when we came home we had hot chocolate and rosinen stuten mit butter (kind of soft sweet bread -striezel in austria- with raisins and butter).
we´re looking forward to visit you, but constantin insisted for a travel - schedule - change . he wants to see the temple -from inside , that means 2012 is our year. i hope your guestroom is still available at that time.
much greetings from vienna and happy thanksgiving!
johanna
Lois said…
Sorry we missed the festivities, but I usually try to avoid all things German.

You should have a picture of your monstrous kids next to my mini kids. As we like to say, we're breeding jockeys.

Did any of the lanterns go up in flames? That would make it almost worth it to traipse around in the cold with a bunch of German loving college students!

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