St. Nicholas Banquet

Tradition here at Saint Meinrad dictates that the Deacon Class hosts the St. Nicholas Banquet, a pre-Christmas party of sorts for the seminary community. This is the last big (that is, school-wide) formal party planned and hosted by the Deacon Class; it is usually our sort of thank you and good bye to the school, done—well—five months before we actually leave.

Last night, the Deacon Class hosted an ‘anticipated’ (anticipated by a week; the feast of St. Nicholas is not until Wednesday) St. Nick’s Banquet. Our theme was inspired by the movie Home Alone, which was particularly apt because the President-Rector is gone on sabbatical for the first semester.

As Class President, I asked Deacon Rick Nagel to serve as over-all chair of this Banquet. I helped mostly in the background; I was co-chair of the Decorations Committee and I also sang with the St. Nick’s mini-schola. For the décor, I decided on a red and green motif. Thus, the Christmas tree was decorated with mostly red balls, to specially highlight the table centerpiece that I designed (the lamp surrounded by a garland of pine accented by sprigs of holly). The schola sang spoofs of songs that we often hear on Friday liturgies and we also lead the whole crowd in singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “O Come All Ye Faithful.”

The celebration went exceedingly well. It started with Evening Prayer with Benediction at the St. Thomas Aquinas Chapel. We then had hors d’oeuvres and St. Nick’s gift-giving to the children at the Alumni Commons. It was then that we presented our St. Nick for the year, our very own Br. Cyril, OSB, with his red beard all whitened up for the occasion. Finally, we moved the crowd to the Newman Dining Room where we served French onion soup, the main course (mashed potatoes and carrots, and spiral cut glazed ham, or salmon for the vegetarians), and dessert (cookies and cheesecake). We interrupted the meal a couple of times with our very own Home Alone video. The video was a hit with its many hilarious moments. Hopefully, I can later post it on youtube and link it here.

To the right is the class photo of our Deacon Class, taken after the Banquet. We all wore the red Santa hats while serving in the celebration.