Saturnalia
By Andrew Whitson (Madeira)
On the Friday before midterms, the MJCL holds its annual Saturnalia
celebration in honor of the ancient Roman festival to Saturn. Held in the high
school cafeteria, the event starts
at 6:45 in the morning, 45
minutes before school begins.
As is tradition, Katy and I, the
club aediles, began the
ceremony and festivities by
conducting a sacrifice for
Saturn. The poor victim was one
of the officer’s stuffed animals,
and its entrails were revealed to
the soothsayer, who forecasted
nothing but good omens for the
club. To reaffirm these
predictions, an augur was called in
The Ohio delegation at NJCL convention!
to read the movements of stuffed
birds flying across the cafeteria.
Soon after, the members of the MJCL gathered to celebrate the splendid
“harvest” of grain for the year by indulging in a spectacular feast of cereal, milk,
juice, fruit, and other breakfast foods. One by one, Magistra calls up each Latin
level to pick from the spread of food and dig in.
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 items as Nerf guns, coffee mugs,
assorted candies and sweets, boxes of pencils, tins of cat food, packs of erasers,
chess trophies, posters, Blu-ray DVDs, and twelve-packs of Sprite Cranberry.
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