Mid-Autumn Moon Festival
Date: TBA - Mid-September 2024 (Will be announced in early 2024)
About the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival
This event is held in September of every year in celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival. It is our flagship family-friendly event with lower ticket prices to encourage our donors to bring their children as well. Enjoy a multi-course, family-style meal and celebrate the Thanksgiving of the East! There will be activities for children and a small Night Market. The Mid-Autumn Festival raises funds for our Rural Colorado Teacher Grants and provides an opportunity to talk with and learn from rural Colorado teachers and students.
Marking the end of the fall harvest, the Mid-Autumn Festival was traditionally a time to give thanks, so it is also known as the Thanksgiving of the East. It is a time of year that the moon is at its brightest, which is why lunar legends have always been attached to the celebration. Most notable in Chinese lore is the the story of Chang Er, the wife of the hero, Hou Yi, who shot down nine of the ten suns with his bow and arrow. She drank an elixir of immortality to save it from a greedy student of Hou Yi – Peng Meng. Chang Er then ascended to the moon and has been worshiped by the Chinese as a Moon Goddess ever since. Each year, fruits and cakes are displayed as an offering to the Moon Goddess.
