MPBN to air county holiday program

What began as a simple idea of producing a Christmas DVD mounted on an Aroostook 2008 Calendar has turned into a statewide showcase of County residents at Christmastime.
“Christmas Greetings From Aroostook,” a 26-minute DVD featuring the many ways Christmas is celebrated in northern Maine will be shown twice on Maine Public Broadcasting Network during Christmas week. “We have many unique events here at Christmas time,” said filmmaker Brenda Jepson, of Madawaska Lake “and I thought people downstate would find these quite fascinating.”
So Jepson, who has been making programs for MPBN for 24 years, sent a “Christmas Greetings From Aroostook” Calendar/DVD to Joe Riley, vice president/director of television at MPBN. “It turned out that ‘Christmas Greetings From Aroostook’ was just the right length of Christmas special MPBN was looking for” said Jepson.
“We are very pleased to have the chance to show this program,” said Riley, who has helped select a variety of Christmas specials to go out on MPBN this season. “Not only is the show about Maine, but the icing on the cake is that it features Aroostook County.”
“I was really thrilled when I had that phone call from MPBN letting me know that our Christmas show about Aroostook would be featured,” said Jepson whose show is one of the few Christmas shows made in Maine to be featured.
Narrated by Layne Longfellow, “Christmas Greetings From Aroostook” was a year in the making and features villages and towns the full length of the county as well as 15 different Christmas carols.
Viewers in the Caribou area will see friends and neighbors performing in a segment featuring the Caribou Choral Society and the Living Christmas Tree at the United Baptist Church of Caribou, but there are also many scenes from New Sweden and Stockholm.
Other featured festivities include The Heavenly Harpers of Houlton, The Presque Isle Light Parade, Caribou Choral Society, sleigh rides in Mapleton, the Santa Lucia procession in the Swedish Colony, and children in Fort Kent decorating little living Christmas trees.
Two scenes include Christmas culinary specialties – Santa Lucia Buns being prepared in New Sweden and Tourtiere (spiced meat pie) in the St John Valley. Recipes of food prepared in the show are also featured on Crown Of Maine Productions’ web site.
“Christmas Greetings from Aroostook” will be shown on MPBN Sunday, Dec. 23, at 4:30 p.m. and again Christmas Day at 9:30 p.m. The DVDs are sold in stores locally or may order it from the Jepsons’ web site www.crownofmaineproductions.com. For more information contact Jepson on 2896-3416.