[Hellsgate] Hellsgate Yule Revel

[Ruiz]

As December gets closer I find myself getting excited about our Yule. I have 
never attended a masquerade ball so I am looking forward to coming up with a 
costume.  I pasted a little blurb about masquerade balls below. 

My excitment doesn't stop with costuming but with the idea of spending some time 
with friends. 

Ok really it is all about the food! You all know how I love to cook and eat and 
to see the food that people have already signed up for makes my mouth water. 

My hope is that everyone gets into the spirit of this Yule and we see neat 
costumes and great food. 

When you see Kat, Jenn or Liam say a quick thanks for what they are doing for 
us.
 So with that being said what should 
my costume be? I have heard angel, then fallen angel and now the devil in 
disguise. Really!!! 

If you have an idea yell it out. I want to hear your ideas.
 
Mel
 
 
A masquerade ball (or bal masqué) is an event which the participants attend in 
costume wearing a mask. Such gatherings, festivities of Carnival, were 
paralleled from the 15th century by increasingly elaborate allegorical Entries, 
pageants and triumphal processions celebrating marriages and other dynastic 
events of late medieval court life. The "Bal des Ardents" ("Burning Men's Ball") 
was intended as a Bal des sauvages ("Wild Men's Ball") a costumed ball 
(morisco). It was in celebration of the marriage of a lady-in-waiting of Charles 
VI of France's queen in Paris on January 28, 1393. The King and five courtiers 
dressed as wildmen of the woods (woodwoses), with costumes of flax and pitch. 
When they came too close to a torch, the dancers caught fire. (This episode may 
have influenced Edgar Allan Poe's short story "Hop-Frog".) Such costumed dances 
were a special luxury of the ducal court of Burgundy.
Masquerade balls were extended into costumed public festivities in Italy during 
the 16th century Renaissance (Italian, maschera). They were generally elaborate 
dances held for members of the upper classes, and were particularly popular in 
Venice. They have been associated with the tradition of the Venetian Carnival. 
With the fall of the Venetian Republic at the end of the 18th century, the use 
and tradition of masks gradually began to decline, until they disappeared 
altogether.