Natchitoches Christmas Festival 2018

Saturday evening, November 24, 2018,  my husband John and I went with two of our adult children, Christie and Brandt Underwood, to Natchitoches, LA, to see the Christmas lights. The city had blocked off the downtown street, which was packed with people.

Some features of the beautiful old city full of joyful visitors could not be caught by our cellphone cameras, or by any camera. It isn't possible to show the ancient brick streets, and no picture can show the joy of the happy crowd.

After a short walk, we arrived at a glorious canopy of multicolored lights, topped by a large red fleur de lis. Christie captured an interesting
shot.
 Maglieaux's,  one of our favorite Natchitoches restaurants, is located  next to the pretty lights. Saturday night, a live band was playing on the sidewalk with tables of patrons loving the concert. We walked to the inside of the restaurant and arranged to be seated outside after a short wait.

While we waited we had mini meat pies, which were the best Natchitoches meat pies I've ever tasted. We also had spinach-artichoke dip. Our foods included shrimp etouffee,  corn bisque, a hamburger, and a shrimp poboy. All the food was delicious. Oh, they gave us some excellent fried okra as lagniappe. The bowls of shrimp etouffee were so big and the servings were so generous that we couldn't eat all of it.

We sat outside next to the Cane River, which had an abundance of lighted objects along the river banks. Other years when I've gone there, I rode with groups of  people, such as Sunday School classes, along the streets to look at these, but this night we enjoyed other attractions. The blocked-off streets were full of people walking up and down. No one seemed to notice the sudden drop in temperature. Wide-eyed children, happy lovers, and many other sorts of people seemed to have enough warmth in their hearts to keep them warm.

From the outdoor court, we were able to see the fireworks, a magnificent display with more intensity than others I've seen in the past.  When we finished eating, we walked down the main street.

Everywhere we looked we saw something pretty or

something interesting. I loved the lighted renditions of reindeer next to the big light canopy.

Some of the shops were open. Christie bought some fleur de lis cookie cutters to place on a Christmas tree. 

We enjoyed seeing the three horses with long buggies taking visitors for rides. 

The loveliness of the full moon surpassed all the man made lights. I tried to photograph it as it rose above the concert given by Chicken on the Bone band. 

Go to my author Facebook page,  Mary Lou Cheatham, Author to see some more pictures and my Facebook page, Mary Cooke (MaryLouCheatham Cooke) has a few more pictures.

(Natchitoches is pronounced NAK uh tesh.) Special thanks to Brandt for driving us. John and I snored all the way home from Natchitoches to Shreveport. Oh, the joy of being a senior citizen!

Christie purchased a Natchitoches Christmas shirt:

Here's a little history lesson copied from a Bing Search Page:

Natchitoches is a small city and the parish seat of Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, United States. Established in 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis as part of French Louisiana, the community was named after the indigenous Natchitoches people.

Fast Paced

DEAD SEA RISING is a fast-paced, easy-to-read book, written in the currently popular style of using multiple timelines.

It’s a novel with interconnected stories that excavate buried secrets and hidden treasures in order to provide an understanding of behavior in later times based on the events of earlier periods. In DEAD SEA RISING, Jerry Jenkins links three stories from different eras.

The contemporary story is a portrayal of the attempts of a young highly-educated woman who wants to take charge of an archaeological excavation in Saudi Arabia to get permission to proceed with her work. This part of the novel gives the reader an inside look into the practices of the New York Police Department. Also it’s entertaining to see how benevolent rich patients receive special care in hospitals. This story is like LAW AND ORDER in that it provides a sea of red herrings. I guessed the wrong culprit. Up to the last page, I thought someone else had committed the crime.

Another story presents a look into the Viet Nam war. The scenes are realistic, and the events are tense. The tie between the main characters in today’s New York City and those in Viet Nam decades ago are the natural outcome of the circumstances in the last half of the twentieth century with some surprising twists in the plot.

The earliest story gives insights into Ur of the Chaldees, the home of Abram (Abraham), the patriarch of three of the most influential religions of the world today. Engaging in a covenant with the one living God, he laid the foundation of Judaism. Christianity, which results from the fulfillment of Jewish beliefs and prophecy, also claims him as a father. In Islam he is a revered prophet. DEAD SEA RISING shows life in a realistic way as it was in the time of Abram without violating any details found in the Bible. The character Terah, mentioned numerous times in Genesis, comes alive from the pages of DEAD SEA RISING with the help of Jewish traditional beliefs and Jerry’s imagination.

The concept of changing the relationship between Jews and Arab Muslims by “connecting the pieces of an ancient puzzle” (quoted from the back cover) is large and ambitious, perhaps more than can be achieved in a single book. DEAD SEA RISING is the first book of a series.

Jenkins tells the story in small chapters with carefully selected minimal details. He flips from one time frame to another by alternating the chapters. The reader will notice occasional parallel action, just enough to make it interesting but not often enough to make the novel seem contrived.

An impressive characteristic of all the Jerry Jenkins novels I’ve read is the extensive research of historical events. The selected details help me visualize the scenes, and I realize I’m learning history as I read.

Video of an Excerpt of #DeadSeaRising

Now's the time to go to Amazon and order your copy of Dead Sea Rising, which will be released on November 13, 2018. In the meantime, enjoy this video of a scene selected from the book:

#DeadSeaRising