Saturnalia
Ben Fisk, Madeira
On the Friday of the week before
midterm exams, the MJCL had its
annual Saturnalia celebration in honor of
the ancient Roman festival to honor
Saturn. Held in the high school cafeteria,
the event started at 6:45 in the morning,45
minutes before the school day began.
Despite how early it was, attendance was
exceptional, almost filling the entire high
school cafeteria! This year, the members of
Senatus purchased a wide variety of
breakfast food for the club, from cereal
and milk to donuts and bagels to fresh
fruit and snacks, along with hot
chocolate and milk to drink. One by one,
Magistra called up each Latin level to pick
from the spread of food, and as always,
Latin III was called last.
Every year, there is a Saturnalia
king and queen, which are randomly
chosen from among all the club members.
While setting up the cafeteria, club officers
put special notes under two of the lunch
table seats in order to determine who
would be crowned as royalty. This year,
we had Izzy Evans, an Amici, and Kaitlynn
Teng, a Latin III, as the king and queen
(yes, there can be two girls or two guys).
Club aediles Andrew Whitson and
Ben Ramos also held a sacrifice to
Saturn. Unfortunately, they chose not to
sacrifice a member of the French or
Spanish Club this year as that wouldn’t
exactly hold up well in court. Instead, they
practiced their baseball swing, sacrificing
some penguin and hedgehog stuffed
animals with the wooden classroom
gladius as the club cheered them on.
Mad a s u n po g wi
s a z Whi Ele
n gi s
The final part of the celebration was a traditional white
elephant gift exchange in accordance with the ancient
Saturnalia practice of gift giving. Each club member
brought a small wrapped gift to trade at random with
someone sitting at the same table. There are always some
very interesting gifts, and this time was no exception as
club members received such things as light-up
sunglasses, Christmas pens and pencils, candy, two liter
bottles and twelve packs of Sprite Cranberry, water
bottles, tumblers, books, go-fish card decks, crossword
puzzles, and coffee mugs.
Although this concluded the morning celebrations,
individual grade levels continued to celebrate in the
classroom by singing along karaoke-style to some classic
winter holiday songs in Latin, including “O Abies,”
“Tinniunt,” and “Sit Prosperus Iesus Nati.” After all, I can’t
really think of a better way to get Latin Club members in
the holiday spirit.