Thanksgiving in Elgin (well if you belong to the Catholic Church anyway) is not your typical holiday family-eat-lots-of-food celebration. You see, St. Boniface Parish puts on this huge Thanksgiving bazaar so if you are from the parish (like the Starman family) you have to work at it on Thanksgiving day and in the days leading up to the big event. My mom actually hates it because she grew up with the family feasts and get-togethers on the day. She always says that it's too bad us kids don't get to see what a "real" Thanksgiving celebration is. My dad on the other hand doesn't know any different. The bazaar has been going on for 80 some years, so for him, the bazaar is the excitement! It's an all out feast, just like at Grandma's house. As for me, I don't mind it because it's all I've ever known as well. It's kind of nice I suppose to get to share the holiday with not only your family, but also your friends and community as well. And what better than to serve others on a day for giving thanks?
On Friday morning, I convinced my mom to get up at 2:45 a.m. with me to brave the black Friday shopping crowds. We browsed through JC Penneys and Herbergers between 4 and 5 and I was shocked that the crowds really weren't that bad. But, I believe the reason was that all the people happened to be dispersed in ridiculously long lines outside of Shopko, Target and Walmart waiting to storm these stores when they opened at 5. Mom and I chose to check out Walmart's deals shortly after five. Perhaps the overflowing parking lot (people in the grass and nearby gas stations) should have been a far enough warning that Walmart was not the place to be, but we entered anyway. HOKEY PETE!! IT WAS MADNESS!!! The DVD bins were located right up front, which was the first fatal mistake as swarms of people blocked easy passage to anywhere else in the storm. I was scared I might be trampled and then I looked up to see a blind lady coming at me in the swarm. Now, I don't want to be prejudiced by any means, but I was scared for her. She couldn't see the masses shoving her and I could and I was scared. Long story short, Mom and I decided the lines weren't worth the wait and we exited Walmart and a few other stores as well. We went grocery shopping instead at Hy-Vee - might I add that people actually did the whole running bit here as well when the doors opened at six!!
The best part of break though was definitely seeing friends from home who I haven't been able to hang out with in far too long. Those nights and long overdue chats were a blessing.
Okay, now the exciting part of this post (hopefully you're still reading so you don't miss this): VESPERS!!! WOOHOOOO!! The official performance went down at 4:30 and 7:30 yesterday and it was simply beautiful (I hope the crowd enjoyed it as much as the choir did)!!!! For those of you who don't know, Vespers is the Mount Marty Choir Christmas Concert, held in the chapel with gospel readings between songs. This year we had an orchestra from Sioux Falls and it just made the music glorious. :) If I had to chose, I'd definitely say that the Chapel is one of the best places possible to sing with an orchestra - amazing acoustics. We also had a tenor soloist from California come down for the performance and he melted many hearts with his gorgeous voice! It was definitely one of my coolest memories here to have stood less than a foot behind the orchestra and sing Christmas music with them next to people I love. I could feel the risers we were standing on vibrating with the noise of the french horns!!! My only complaint was that my shoulders and back ached after standing
for a good six hours (including a 2.5 hour afternoon rehearsal). Thanks to all of you who came down to support us and to enjoy the show. I'm sad that it is over and that was my last ever Vespers performance.And that brings me to now - and now equals the last week of classes of the semester before finals. It's crunch time apparently and I'm still trying to figure out where time went.
Happy December everyone!!!
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