The true spirit of Martinmas!
My little angel in the Martinmas Pageant (looking like a football player due to this Mama making her wear a jacket in the 40 degree weather. Mean Mama!)
Lantern walk after the pageant
Discovering what a tough job squirrels have trying to open our warm roasted chestnuts after the walk
Our Martinmas dinner set up
The warmth of the fire after our family Martinmas walk
We had quite a Martinmas weekend. On Friday K's school had their Martinmas pageant in the amphitheater at Reed college. Such a picturesque setting for it. After the pageant we all went on a lantern walk around the beautiful campus and ended with some warm roasted chestnuts to heat us up. It was darker out than my pictures make it appear. I am in between shooting in aperture priority mode and manual right now. It was too dark for my aperture priority settings so I decided to try only manual that night. As I am sure you can tell - there was a lot of trial and (mostly) error.
Our family celebration for Martinmas involved lots of lanterns glowing with candlelight around our home, a family lantern walk in the rain and telling Saint Martin's story by the fire. I somehow misplaced my Saint Martin story that I have read to my children over the years so I took pieces from the stories in All Year Round and Festivals, Family and Food and made them into one. No complaints were made so I guess it worked.
Today made me think of what Martinmas means. It reminded me that I need to be doing more service for our community and being a better example for my children. I would like to look into soup kitchens around here to see if any of them might allow little ones to serve along side me. I don't think C is ready for that yet, but K is without a doubt. She tells me that she wants to help others her whole life. It's my job to nurture that desire and help her fulfill it.
I hope you all had a warm and meaningful Martinmas today (as well as Veterans day - an important day of remembrance).
