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Join us to decorate the WES building for Winter Festival, tonight starting at 6pm!

❄️🎄⛄🎄⛄🎄❄️

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Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the state of the world? Unable to sleep, even? 

This year’s Winter Festival invites us into the world of Grace, a child who can’t get to sleep because of all her worries. Luckily, Grace meets Emmitt and Rae, magical story spinners who–without minimizing what is wrong in the world–invite her to see the love, the joy, the giving, the peace, and the hope all around her. 

Hope: an elusive and vital quality, as Grace discovers. In our Winter Festival tradition, hope is embodied each year in our children’s candlelighting, one of the participatory elements of the gathering. I have such distinct memories of those moments. In 2012, our children lit their candles the day after the Sandy Hook shooting. In 2014, the candlelighting included images of Black Lives Matters vigils from around the country. Every year, we smile at the babies, carried in their parents’ arms; we hold our breath while the toddler carries their own candle for the first time, a collective sigh of relief when the flame is placed safely on the table; we tear up when the high school senior comes forward with their candle. Every year, our children create hope for us. 

And this year, they have been creating hope for weeks! Working with our guest director Gretchen Weigel, this cast is particularly full of amazing kids and their dedication to the magic that is Winter Festival. Watching their investment in telling the story just right–which, yes, sometimes feels like being in a room with fifteen directors–is an honor. 

Our children are of course supported by adults as well. And sometimes it feels like *that* is my favorite part of Winter Festival, watching adults (this year, some of our regular actors and some brand-new faces as well) take on the fantastical story characters. Or maybe my favorite part is seeing the banners drop at the end of the “show,” as we all shout out peace! hope! love! Or maybe it’s singing Dona Nobis Pacem, all together, in what feels every time like a moment of awe. Or maybe it is the cookies. It really might be the cookies. 

Every year, as we manage the last minute details of tech week, as we scramble to find that perfect set piece or to sew the rip on the costume before the curtain goes up, I wonder whether all the work is worth it. Every year, as I watch our children lay down candles, as we weave our way around the hall in the peace spiral, as we tell stories old and new, I remember that it is. Because the weight of the world is a lot to hold, and hope can be hard to find. 

Come find it with us this Sunday.

Warmly,

Amanda