Advent Activity: Our Candle Night in Words

Friday night at Old  Sturbridge Village was superb, as their special candlelight program always is (we've been once before with the kids and a few times before them, once the night of an amazing snowstorm).  We had a wonderful time:

• admiring the gingerbread house competition entrants (I got a great idea for half-timbering with licorice and thatching with shredded wheat)
• tasting fire-roasted chestnuts and hearing about a blight on the very tall trees that left them functionally extinct in the 19th century; the kids liked the trees but not the nuts
• sampling gingerbread (softer than a cookie, denser than cake)
• making their own paper cornucopiae
• helping whisk the ingredients of fruitcake and tasting the finished product (that only Mama and I liked)
• making real tinsel with the tinsmith
• hand-stamping Christmas cards
• watching the roasting and grinding of cocoa beans
• admiring the creation of realistic marzipan fruits
• talking to Father Christmas about the symbolism of holly and ivy
• drinking poker-heated mulled cider
• listening to carolers
• watching the bonfire and being entranced by the sparks flying into the night's sky
• perusing a porcelain historic village
• listening to Full Gael sing "Soul Cakes" accompanied by period instruments
• watching a model railroad train
• wondering at a detailed nativity scene
• riding a horse-drawn carriage
• eating dinner in the old tavern
• and finally, meeting Santa Claus and talking about his favorite chocolate chip cookies (and when Bud asked for "surprises," Santa teased that his muddy boot would be a surprise!  They thought this was hilarious.)