Boar’s Head and Yule Log Festival returns in Palm Beach for first post-COVID installment

A popular Christmastime festival is returning this weekend after a two-year hiatus because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The annual Boar’s Head and Yule Log Festival at The Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea will be at 3:30 p.m. Saturday and at 2 and 4:30 p.m. Sunday.

“It’s a spectacle of sight and sound and color and story,” said the Rev. Tim Schenck, who was installed as the church’s rector in November and will be celebrating his first Boar’s Head and Yule Log Festival.

While this year marks the first festival since the COVID-19 pandemic, it also marks the 45th anniversary for the Boar’s Head and Yule Log Festival, said Beth Cole, co-production facilitator for the festival with fellow parishioner Jim Goodner.

“It’s kind of a fresh start, and it’s very exciting,” Cole said. She noted that the church came “very close” to having the festival last year, going so far as having almost all of the casting finished for the roughly 160 roles.

“Then Omicron reared its ugly head,” she said of the COVID-19 variant that led to a spike in cases around and after the holidays in 2021. “We had to make the difficult decision to put it off for another year.”

The festival is a recreation of a medieval London Lord Mayor’s banquet. Volunteer actors — many of whom are parishioners at Bethesda-by-the-Sea — portray lords, ladies, beefeaters, huntsmen, jesters, dancers, singers, instrumentalists, pages, shepherds and sprites. It ends with the retelling of the nativity story, the birth of Jesus and the arrival of the three wise men or three kings.

The event’s history dates back to a festival at Queen’s College in Oxford, England, in 1340.

“It’s the kind of tradition that brings people together, and it binds the generations together, and it binds the church to the community,” Cole said. “We have people who come back year after year after year.”

The boar represents Satan and evil, lurking in the forest, Cole said.

“It became tradition to kill a wild boar and eat it at Christmas,” she said, adding that a real boar’s head is used in the production. It’s the same boar’s head that has been used for decades, and the lore is that it came from a boar that was shot on the island of Palm Beach, Cole said.

For many, participating in the festival’s production is a family affair. Cole has been involved since 2001, and her children, now 27 and 29, acted in a variety of roles growing up.

“It is such a joyful tradition at Bethesda,” she said.

Cole pointed to parishioner Lois Reid Clemente, who as a child was the sprite in the church’s first festival in 1978. Clemente now is a committee member who helps with casting and costuming, and this year her husband, Raphael, is the Star of the East; their daughter, Kaia, is a Boar’s Head Maiden; and their daughter, Rell, portrays a Jester.

“We had someone come in for a fitting who said, ‘My mother wore this dress 30 years ago,’” Cole said. “It’s so rich in history and generational connectedness.”

Cole’s favorite part of the festival is watching the little ones enact their roles. “The little tiny cast members, they always steal the show,” she said, laughing. One year, a 3-year-old portraying a page to one of the three kings began looking under the actors’ robes, Cole recalled.

“They’re unpredictable as cast members, but even when they’re doing the wrong thing, it’s adorable,” she said.

This year’s festival is dedicated to the memory of Bob Jackson, who died in September. He was the only parishioner who had participated in every festival since 1978. He was Head Beefeater for many years and trained incoming actors in the role, Cole said.

In addition to this being Schenck’s first festival, it also is the first Boar’s Head and Yule Log Festival for new music director Stuart Forster. Cole described the event’s music as “timeless.”

“There’s so much majesty in the music,” she said.

This is the first year the church will sell tickets online in advance. Cole said the goal is to help alleviate some of the long lines at performances.

Priority seating tickets are available for $25 at www.bbts.org. Seating at the door is first come, first served and those tickets also are $25.

The church is at 141 S. County Road, just south of The Breakers.

For more information, go to www.bbts.org.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Bethesda-by-the-Sea's Boar’s Head and Yule Log Festival returns this weekend