There were a few years there when the kids were in elementary school that I got my creativity out of my system helping out at the church carnival.  Sometimes when I look back I can’t believe I did it all.   I want to chronicle some of it because in retrospect it may be the kinds of things my children will remember about me, and not the impatience and bad behavior of an overwhelmed mommy.

One year the theme was New Orleans.  The dining room table became mask central.  I purchased probably fifty black plastic Halloween eye masks, glitter, three-D fabric paint, glitter glue sticks of every color, feathers, fake “jewels,” sequins and the like.  Then I got busy making mardi gras masks using only my mood and imagination as a guide.  They were beautiful when I was all finished.  I didn’t just go the princess route, there were masks that were kinda evil lookin’ as well.   I took them over to the “craft” booth at the carnival and when asked how much I wanted to charge for them, I said I didn’t care and all I really wanted was to see them on the kids’ faces.  I got my wish.  By the time the carnival was in full swing I saw little ones  – boys and girls – flying past me with the masks on, on their way to the various game booths.   There was not one left by the time that carnival ended.  Delightful and very satisfying.

That same year I instituted a photo booth.  I created two of those big boards where you stick your head through and get your picture taken.  One was a dancing girl – kind of a French Quarter kind, but tasteful.  The other was a crawdad fisherman, and baby he had caught a MONSTER crawdad.  Those were a big hit, too.  The following year it was a Fiesta theme and the kids were able to pretend they were Montezuma.  He was fabulous if I do say so myself.

My favorite donation to the carnival, though, is always my cakes.  I get carried away – they are so easy.  I just make round one-layer cakes and decorate them with whatever strikes my fancy – one had footprints walking across it, one was a spider web, of course a big ol’ sunflower on one, big red lips all over one, I can’t remember what all.  A couple of years I got into making doll cakes, with the big hoop skirts and Southern belle bonnets.  I used the same mold but instead of making a doll, it became a spaceship with aliens sticking out of it.  Always thinking of the boys, you know! 

My role for the past few years was as the Prize Goddess – setting up the prize room.  It was a kick – all year long I got to shop with money that wasn’t my own for toys and prizes.  It took all year – grabbing things at the dollar store or on sale when I would see things, picking out crazy stuff from Oriental Trading catalog; it was interesting to see how some things would go like hotcakes one year and be totally ignored the next.  I got a taste of what it must be like to be a retailer.  The “consumers” were fickle, that’s for sure.

The parish carnival is my favorite event of the year.  It’s turned into just Oktoberfest now, the theme doesn’t change, it’s easier that way I guess.  We have an oom-pah band and brats and despite the years that I ran the whole shebang and was barred from renting inflatables for the kids due to liability, it has happily been allowed for the last few years.  I just love the community of it – the kids play til they drop, or until their parents drop.  The seniors sit under the big tent and enjoy the music and joy.  For some reason we are always blessed with good weather.  One year I ran the carnival it rained the entire weekend before, but that carnival day was about as perfect as California weather can get. 

This year I will miss the carnival – we are going to visit Joe in Colorado and I’m of course delighted about that.  I’m thinking that next year I may get into some cake baking again.  I stopped because the prize room job was so all encompassing, but now that I have (hallelujah!) an island in my kitchen, it would be fun to revisit the piles of colored frosting and cakes cooling on racks, waiting their turn to be transformed into the cake that people spend fifty bucks on the cake walk to win.