Decorating for Celebrating (you can never have too much white material)

Among the many jobs necessary to prepare for the 50th Wedding Anniversary fete, we had to borrow tables from a generous church willing to loan them for the event.I was surprised by the oversized church signage:I think it says, “Be reconciled with God!” above and “Do you believe in the Son of God?” below.The Belgian Wonder and his brother loaded the tables onto a trailer while I took pictures and entertained the children.Then we arrived at the old print shop, where the event was to be held: Time to decorate!The presses were moved or sold a few years ago when the Belgian print shop merged with another Christian publishing house in northern France, so now it’s just a big space being used mostly for storage. But for years, it was the place where The Belgian Wonder’s family spent countless hours helping print, fold, stitch, bind, box and ship Christian literature in French to the French-speaking nations of the world.We were to transform the vacant warehouse space into a pretty place for a party using a lot of white sheets, packing tape, curled gold ribbon, lace, voile, and some ingenuity.One of the nieces and I were given the impossible task of “hiding” and making beautiful a monstrous furnace splattered with oil. After hoisting gold tableclothes over a line of rope and draping lace curtains here and there, we stepped back to admire our handiwork and got to laughing so hard I started crying. She flipped some extra fabric around us, toga-like, and we posed:But it worked out fine, because it looked quite pretty when it was done. Besides, the evening wasn’t really about the drapes, lace, voile, and ribbon. It was about honoring and celebrating The Belgian Wonder’s parents for 50 years of marriage and ministry:Felicitations to my mother- and father-in-law!