On November 11th, the German’s celebrate St. Martin who was a Roman soldier and known for his kindness. As the story goes, one winter night, St. Martin came across a beggar who was dying in the cold without a coat. St. Martin took his sword and cut his cape in half and shared it with the beggar. So every year, the children in Germany celebrate this kind saint by making small paper lanterns in their schools and having a lantern parade. In our town, the children met at a playground and together with a marching band flanked with junior firefighters carrying torches, they walked and sang songs about St. Martin. They walked about ½ mile from one playground to another playground. At the second playground, there was a huge bonfire and they were selling hot drinks and bread. And then it basically became a town social event. The most interesting part of this event is that there are actually children carrying lit candles inside their paper lanterns. I asked Taryn’s kindergarten teacher about this and she said, “if you feel that it’s too dangerous for her to have a candle in her lantern, then you are welcome to buy an electric light”. Uh, yeah, she’s four. I am envisioning that a four year-old, a candle, and a paper lantern do NOT make a good combination. And I am somewhat concerned that the Germans do not see anything wrong with this! Fortunately, every firefighter and junior firefighter in town were on hand to quickly extinguish any accidental fires. We met up with one of Taryn’s friends from kindergarten and had a nice evening participating in this annual German event.
Before the lantern parade. The girls with friend, Maddie.
The parade!
At the bonfire post parade.
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