This celebration of the victory of good over evil is perhaps the oldest continuing festival of the Christmas season. It began as a holiday tradition in the grand manor houses of England, and was brought to America during colonial days. There’s never a dull moment in this fast-moving presentation, which is loaded with beautiful imagery and wondrous surprises.
The festival is based on an old legend, that of an Oxford student who kills a wild boar when it interrupts his studies. When the church adopted the Festival, it gained a new, Christian significance: the wild boar, symbolic of evil, is overcome by good through the teachings of Christ.
Marching companies, in beautiful authentic costumes of Renaissance England, sing the ancient songs of Christendom, as they carry in the gaily-bedecked head of the wild boar, which is conquered by the innocent goodness of the Christ Child. The triumph of light over darkness is made graphic in the Christ Candle through its light and through the carvings on the wooden candle-holder in our production.
The second part of the program features the original Christmas story, as shepherds and Wise Men travel to Bethlehem to bring gifts to the Christ Child. The traditional tableau—Mary, Joseph and the baby—is revealed as the climax, with the baby recently born to a member of our congregation playing the part of the infant Jesus. You can’t experience the Christmas story quite like this anywhere else.
