Fall Festivals Abound!

There's something to be said about fall and all the church festivals that occur this time of year.  We attended festival at my parent's church to celebrate my daughter's birthday!  Walking up to the parking lot with the large tents set up brought back such fond memories.

When we were growing up, my sisters and I would go to church, often times to the 7:00 a.m. liturgy because that's what my dad liked best, and see the huge white tents set up in the middle of the parking lot.  The excitement was almost too much to bear!  We would have to go home and come back later when the festival started.  My mom was for many, many years in charge of the pie room for the festival dinner.  She would leave early, sometimes taking us with her, other times leaving us home with my dad.  He was never in a big hurry to get there, so it was difficult waiting for him!

Once we arrived, we would stand in line waiting for tables in the school basement to open so we could sit down and eat the grilled chicken dinner our church was famous for.  As a youngster, I could have cared less about the dinner and would have just preferred to play games in the game tent!  Time would drag until we'd get the okay to go out and play.

The games were typical festival games but they were just plain fun.  And the huge bounce house was by far my favorite part of festival.  The pony rides in the circle was fun and sometimes there was a horse drawn wagon that would take us into the orchards and back.  Those are some very fond memories!

I'm happy that I was able to share that same fun with my kids a few weeks back.  While the festival has changed over the years, the innocence of childhood fun never ceases!  

This coming weekend OUR church is having a festival.  It will be small and cramped, but we're doing our part in planning and working and we'll give it 100%+ effort.  We'll take lots of notes and continue to make our festival one that grows and gets better every year.  Here's to a fall filled with lots of church festivals and good food served by good, hard working parishioners.  We're blessed!