Christmas Banquet and Market

Yesterday (Saturday) was BFA’s annual Christmas Banquet.

The theme of the night: Candyland

Banquet is a chance for all the girls to get dressed up in their prettiest dresses (or their friends’ dresses), do hair, makeup, and nails for half the day, and get worried about their date (or lack thereof). The boys spend the month preceding banquet worrying about how to ask that special girl and what to do if she says no. The boy dorms have T-shirt ironing days to make sure everyone goes to banquet looking their very best.

Banquet tables

After taking pictures and complimenting each other on hair, makeup, shirts, etc., everyone goes inside for the dinner/entertainment time. The entertainment includes singing, humor, granting wishes, parent notes, and crowning the Princes and Princesses of the evening.

The singing ranged from rap to Christmas carols to pop songs, and humor took the form of monologues and skits.

Granting wishes is a BFA Christmas Banquet tradition. In the preceding month, students and teachers submit wishes. At Banquet, some wishes are granted. One teacher placed roses on every table and wished that one person from each table would take that rose and give it to his wife.

Everyone crowds around Mrs. Bryan to give her a rose

This was a somewhat elaborate wish. Others were as simple as wishing for a pizza or Feuer Drachen chips. One boy was not expecting his wish for “sparkly underwear” to be granted, but to his embarrassment, it was. Another student wished that K-pop (Korean pop music) would be played in the halls between classes, so we will be experiencing that on Friday.

Parents send emails to be read aloud to their children at Banquet. Parent notes range from funny to sweet to serious, and several of them had Christmas song parodies and rhymes. The kids in the spotlight suffered from embarrassment as all the students and teachers listen to what their parents have to say to them. Everyone else usually enjoys listening, but the chosen student wants to hide!

Christmas Banquet was a fun evening. Kudos to student council and everyone who helped organize the massive project!

My week did not have enough Christmas in it with just the Christmas Banquet. Today (Sunday) I went to the Basel Christmas market with several friends. The lights and decorations were very festive. The booths had lots of beautiful trinkets, decorations, and ornaments.