This was the 67th anniversary of the Beulah Yule Log Festival, and our 7th time attending. As usual, Phil and I dressed up as Santa and Helper Elf for the Beulah parade of lights the night before the Yule Log. We were thankful to have help decorating the carriage from our friends Bob and Alane Smith who we know from our church in Rye. I added some red and gold frills to the goats’ harnesses and bedecked them in enough bells for the people in the next county to hear them coming.  
The parade was a blur of fun as usual. The goats were particularly well-behaved this year despite having only a single practice session one week before the event. They always get a little nervous in the most crowded section, mostly because of how many dogs bark from the darkness then suddenly lunge into the light all sides. Thankfully the dogs are all leashed, but the experience is always a little unnerving for the goats.

Santa thrilled one and all with his generous distribution of candy. The children always love seeing Santa ride into town in his goat-drawn “sleigh” while the elf toots the horn.

Next morning was the Yule Log festival, and for the first time in our seven years of attending, Phil and I finally got to sit inside the beautiful stone lodge built during the Depression by the CCC. We thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful music presented at their Christmas ceremony before going back to our truck to retrieve Finn and Sputnik for the Yule Log hunt.

We didn’t come anywhere close to finding the Yule Log this year, but as usual our goats helped drag it back! There was no snow this time so dragging the log (and its dozen or so riders) was more difficult than usual, but as always the goats put their best effort into the work and we soon made it back to the lodge with our prize.
And here is the esteemed Yule Log, with part of it already cut and fed to the Yule Fire and the other half waiting to start next year’s fire. 
And now for Sputnik’s favorite part of the celebration–wassail and cookies! There were several dozen varieties of cookies presented, and I’m pretty sure Sputnik sampled most of them and loved almost all of them equally until his belly got full, at which point he became somewhat more discriminating.

As always, the Yule Log Festival was a wonderful, magical celebration steeped in tradition and camaraderie. We can’t wait till next year!