One of the highlights at Christ Church is the annual Boar's Head Festival - a medieval  pageant with over 100 costumed characters of all ages, a full orchestra and choir celebrating Christ's birth and the triumph of good over evil. The sanctuary is beautifully  transformed into an English manor home where the secular and sacred Christmas story is re-told.

Christ Presbyterian Church held its first Boar's Head Festival in 1980 and has continued to hold performances ever since. People from far and near make this their traditional start of the Advent and Christmas season.

Dan Forsberg of New Wilmington is the musical director. He has more than 35 years of experience teaching in the Austintown School District and at Westminster College.  He is also the director of the Eintracht Singing Society in New Castle.

 

More about the origins:

The Boar’s Head Festival began as a Yule log ceremony as early as 1340 and became part of the Christmas celebration of the great manor houses of England.

Its roots are based on the ancient English tradition of gathering a Yule log from the woods to be lit by last year’s embers, a symbol of the rekindling love, and promise for the year ahead and a prayer for God’s keeping. The slaying of a boar for the Christmas feast and preparing it for the ceremony at the altar so the royalty and guests may admire it and the hunter’s skill, is a symbol of victory of the Christ child over sin.

The plum pudding and mince pie suggest the richness and fullness of the gifts of God.

The young are told the story of the birth of the Christ Child as shepherds, and mag, townfolk, and royalty  gather at the altar to offer the Christ Child their gifts..