Day 39, Year 7: Welcome Yule
Date: Saturday, December 17, 2011
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, Still Windy, Temps in the 40’s F
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, North Falmouth, Massachusetts
What a wonderful day. We drove to Boston with Heather, Jed, Sam, and Jonah to attend The Christmas Revels. The performance takes place at the Sanders Theatre on the Harvard campus in Cambridge. The theatre looks more like a cathedral, the design coming from Christopher Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre built in Oxford, England in the 1600’s. The stained glass windows and beautiful wood interior always make a visit there a delight, and the presentation of Revels is perfect in this setting. Revels is a presentation of song, dance, and drama, different every year, but always celebrating the cycles of the seasons of the year at the time of winter solstice. We attended the matinee performance and it took us back to the 16th century in a small French fishing village. Pilgrims from all over Europe and the East wandered through the village as they were presenting their annual presentation of a play about The Three Kings. The Sharq Ensemble, whose goals is to present authentic Arab music using traditional instruments, was woven into this year’s story and it added a delightful flavor. We were so inspired that we decided to go to an Afghan restaurant for dinner afterwards. But back to Revels, I must say that it is a wonderful way to welcome the holidays as a community. Everyone sings and one point, everyone in the theatre dances by holding hands and winding through the aisles and down the stairs to the lobby for intermission. This is called The Lord of the Dance and it is so much fun. In the second half of the show the audience joins in to sing Dona Nobis Pacem (Give Us Peace) which is quite moving and during the presentation of a poem called The Shortest Day, the audience tries to shake the huge chandelier hanging above by shouting, “Welcome Yule.” Sam and Jonah were fantastic. It was almost as much fun to watch them as they reacted to the presentation as it was to watch to watch the actual presentation. And even after sitting in the van for an hour an half to get to Boston, and then sitting through two hours of Revels, they both made it through dinner in a crowded, upscale restaurant without a complaint. Well, Sam got a bit antsy in the first part of Revels, but after intermission he got into the story. So I would say that both Sam and Jonah gave a phenomenal performance this afternoon and evening. Since we will not be with them for Christmas this year, today was certainly a wonderful holiday gift to all of us.
In keeping with the holiday spirit, we are expecting one to three inches of snow tonight. Just yesterday it was so warm, but the temperature has slowly been dropping. We had hoped it would be snowing as we left the theatre, but that little bit of magic didn’t happen. But some snow in the morning (that melts by afternoon) would be perfect.
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| 111217 Day 39 Cape Cod, USA–Revels |
