We had the best time. Though we did not dress up in costume, we went in plain clothes and enjoyed all the costumes, and decided that we would dress up next year as characters from the Norse pantheon. I got my picture taken with the resident Odin, and Thor and Loki were running around together greeting guests all night. There was an older man who came dressed as Odin, and it was the most awesome Odin costume of the evening, complete with black, hooded cloak, large sorcerer's staff and two ravens. We wandered all around the museum, taking in each of the Nine Worlds that they had assigned to various areas and decked out accordingly. We started things off with a lovely meal in the feasting hall of Valhöll, where giant, beautiful wooden tables lined the great room, each with lovely, glass candelabra's and tiny assortments of gourds on them, and we feasted on roasted squash with buttery wild rice and cranberries on top, two skewers of roasted brussel sprouts, and a giant turkey leg. A couple of bands were scheduled to play in this room, and the first band were dressed all in black with skeletons painted on them, their faces obscured by skull make-up, and reminded me more of Haitian Voudou spirits than Norse anything, but very Hallowe'en-y, and they looked altogether creepy through their face paint! Their music was appropriately shrill and eerie. We sipped our ales as we wandered around the rest of the worlds.
Feasting hall of Valhöll
Scrumptious dinner fit for a Viking on a diet
Me, geeking out about it all
Schmooping it up in Åsgård
Me with the giant, resident Óðinn in his kingly garb
Múspellheim was my favorite. In the mythology, Múspellheim is one of the first worlds in existence, a world of fire. The creature that rules over this world, Surtr, was present at the party, and what a scary character they got to represent him! He was a slender man, dressed in black and red, with his face painted a scary, fiery red and had horns attached to his head. He was walking on strange stilts that reminded me of Oscar Pistorius's prosthetic legs and carried an enormous staff as he looked ominously down upon everyone. I greeted him and received a burning glare in return! Yikes! What can one expect from a creature of flame, from a world whose name translates to something like "world-destroyers"? The world was set outside in the courtyard, with fires burning all around, a bar to quench the thirst, and a tent with some Viking enthusiasts whom we chatted up for awhile before it started raining and they brought their incredible swords and carved wooden planks into their tent. The best part was this awesome, symbolic coincidence. In the Norse creation story, the formation of our solar system is symbolized by the story of Múspellheim merging with Niflheim, a world of ice, or "Mist World". The two worlds were polar opposites within a primordial void that the Norse called Ginnungagap, or "Yawning Void", and over time the heat of Múspellheim melted the ice of Niflheim and created water and steam, yada yada yada, this interaction eventually led to the big bang. I pondered all of this as we, such small and puny humans in such a vastness as can rob your breath, watched as these similar forces converged, the cold rain creating an eerie mist of steam as it mingled with the hot flames that surrounded the courtyard. A magical start to our fun evening!
The resident Surtr (and me, keeping my distance)
This humble little tree was decked out as The World Tree, Yggdrasill:
Warming our rumps by the fires of Múspellheim
Posing with Yggrasill
Coming in from the chill, we went into the crafting room set up so that guests could make their own masks! How fun to make art with my Hubby?! Neither of us being terribly artistic with ours, we made superhero-looking masks, not wanting to spend our whole evening obsessing over them. We lamenting not bringing our Mexican wrestling masks to wear! We stuck the paper masks on our heads, and set out to see the rest of the museum, which we had once before visited. The place is huge and beautiful, loads of windows and hard wood everywhere. I completely lost track of where we were in terms of the Nine Worlds, but I remember thinking that we didn't come across a single Hel, the goddess of the realm of death! I made a mental note to come up with a kickass Hel costume next year...although there's a part of me that is superstitious about dressing as a being that embodies death. Don't wanna give the Universe any premature ideas, ya know?! Of course, from my perspective, you'd have to be careful dressing as any of them, then, because they all symbolize something. Maybe just a simple black kitty will be my costume :)
We came upon a cool display of the traditional garb of the Nordic peoples and we marveled over the gorgeous embroidery. The population of the party multiplied exponentially, most people in costumes of varying degrees of coolness and conceptual-ness. We checked out another table of Viking stuff on display, and asked questions about the bone runes and cow drinking horns (I've got to get me one of those!) and of course, we drank more ale! We even stopped off to see an over-the-top actor/story teller recount some of the myths to a room full of interested listeners. In one of the worlds, they had a circus performer tumbling around inside a giant, clear, inflatable balloon. They had a table set up for some paranormal group that we bypassed, and supposedly there was someone reading tarot cards but we never did find them. There was a room where people were writing their own obituaries (that we had little humor for since we've had the displeasure of writing a real one) and there was a fascinating concept of the Silent Dance Party, a room with blue disco lights and a bunch of people with headphones on tuned into 89.9 The Current and dancing to music only they could hear! I LOVED that idea, it was so weird and funny! We stood and giggled for awhile, but didn't dance. We held hands, walked around gaping at everything. John got tangled up in some lady's long train of tulle and ended up bring a hunk of it home with him! Hee hee! We didn't stay terribly late, and as it was getting more difficult to get around and I could sense my "crabby meter" twitching up the dial as we squeezed with ever more difficulty through the claustrophobic hall- and stairways, we decided it would be a nice capper on the night to head home and snuggle with the kitties in front of the fire.
It was a nice start on the journey to make the holidays a little more special :)
