Magic in Nauvoo

I have mentioned before that Nauvoo is a small town and NOT primarily LDS so there is not an excess of resources. However, when including some of the nearby small towns, there are 2 wards (church units) that meet in the church building here. These two wards combined their talents and time to set up a magical themed party for Christmas. Then they had their members come on successive nights so they could all enjoy the scene and still have room for everyone to sit and eat and enjoy a program. One of the men (who also works every week in the temple) is an artist. (You can purchase his work in a little store here in Nauvoo.) He made this wonderful introduction to the theme of the night- the first thing you see when you enter the building and follow railroad tracks on the floor (made of duct tape.)

 Once you have the "conductor" at the door of the cultural hall (gym) punch your tickets, you enter the room and see yet another "train", the engine of which is attached to the back side of the piano which is used during the program after dinner.

 The man who emceed the program did an amazing job impersonating the Tom Hanks voice from the movie.

 Basketball hoops are a permanent fixture in LDS cultural halls and it's always fun to see how they are incorporated into decorations for various events. The hoops can be raised so they're not as much in the way. Here they used the raised hoop to extend lights down to a large hoop on the floor, creating a giant lighted "tree".

 The ceiling, high as it is, was laced with strings of lights and giant paper snowflakes. The walls were covered with sheets upon which the youth of the wards painted unique Christmas trees.

 The meal served was breakfast and people were invited to come in pajamas. We had a blueberry stuffed French toast casserole, a hashbrown/bacon/onion/cheese casserole, sliced ham, cinnamon buns, orange juice, water or milk and lots of various fresh fruits. Below you can see the people lined up for the yummy food but you can't actually see the food. sorry.....

After the meal, the program began, including some little clips of the movie followed by some of the young women dancing to the "Hot Chocolate" song as the young men came out appropriately dressed with carts filled with hot chocolate and cookies. The end was a live nativity scene presented by the teenagers and some Christmas carols. It was a wonderful evening!