Apostles Lutheran Stages Boar’s Head & Yule Log Festival a 12th Time

Congregants of Apostles Lutheran in Brandon are in the giving mood — again.

The Boar’s Head & Yule Log Festival, aimed to bring forth “the reason for the season” in a show of pageantry and music that has become a Greater Brandon seasonal fixture, opens its weekend run tonight, Dec. 2, for its 12th year.

“The first time we did the boar’s head festival it captured the imaginations of us all, the music, the costumes,” said associate in ministry SueAnn Collinge, who this year worked on her seventh festival, in a . “We just latched on to it as something very special and as a gift to the community.”

The pageantry and merriment, music and theater, set in the Middle Ages in England, features a live orchestra and more than 150 costumed actors, from pre-school to senior citizen, performing more than 190 roles.

The church posts a Web site dedicated to the "Boar's Head Festival" that gives updates each year of the show's progress with "behind- the-scenes" notes. The site also gives a synopsis of the various scenes, including the "Journey of the Magi," the "Transition to the Nativity and the Shepherd" and "Good King Wenceslas, the Yule Log and the Wassail Carol."

It begins with "The Lighting of the Christ Candle and the Grand Processional," which features Pastor Vige, as the oldest shepherd, receiving from the sprite, played by one of the youngest girls in the production, a light from her very small candle to his very grand one.

IF YOU GO:

• When — Dec. 2-3, 7:30-8:30 p.m. Also, a Dec. 4 matinee at 4 p.m.
• Where — Apostles Lutheran Church, 200 Kingsway Road, Brandon
• Cost — Free

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