Neither the birth of a child nor a severe thunderstorm stopped one member of the artist collective 'MTAA' from putting on a performance of ‘all the holidays all at once.’

Michael Sarff and Tim Whidden make up MTAA, the collective that has brought these holidays to the Aldrich Contemporary Museum of Art’s sculpture garden. Although Whidden took the day off to witness the birth of his first child, Sarff stood in on Sunday afternoon to represent his half of MTAA, which stands for the M. River and T. Whidden Art Association, Sarff explained.

“I would like to take this moment to congratulate Tim Whidden and Shane Harrison on the birth of the youngest member of the MTAA family, Harper Harrison-Whidden,” Sarff announced, perhaps not expecting that particular kind of holiday, but embracing it in the name of art.

Halloween masks, Christmas carols and patriotic bows were among several items that could be found on picnic blankets outside the museum in a performance choreographed by Sarff.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever been to anything like this before,” participant Emilio Chacon said. “Everybody’s bringing their own celebration.”

Fellow artist Eric Parker and his family showed up to support MTAA’s performance. Parker’s two daughters, Vivian and Sadie enjoyed each holiday as if it were truly taking place in the moment, according to his wife, Brooke.

“She genuinely believes that all of these holidays are really happening right now,” Brooke said of their youngest, Vivian.

Vivian and Sadie embraced the spirit of the MTAA performance with delight. Without hesitation they blew up balloons, wore crowns and drew Thanksgiving turkey hands. Their young enthusiasm showed the deep impact that art can have on a child in just a few hours.

“We started talking about this a year ago with [MTAA],” Monica Ramirez-Montagut said.

Ramirez-Montagut is one of two curators at the Aldrich. She sang Mexican songs for Cinco de Mayo and set up a piñata for Sunday’s event at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.

“The performance thing was kind of spontaneous,” Sarff said. “Monica kept asking what we were going to do for it.”

The day wouldn’t have been possible without the help of the community, as well as www.ebay.com -- Sarff and Whidden gathered holiday decorations from Ridgefielders until they were able to complete their life-sized display of holiday recognition in the sculpture garden.

“It was down to literally the [Aldrich’s] next door neighbor,” Sarff explained. “People were donating a lot of items and it took us about a week, I think, to set up the display.”

The completion of the project did, however, sway from their original plan.

“He wanted to put sheets around that the neighbors would paint,” Ramirez-Montagut said. “When they saw that people had so many ornaments the idea changed.”

Regardless of plan changes, MTAA knew that they wanted to keep the community participating from start to finish. Sunday’s performance brought their wish to life. Chacon grilled hot dogs as the rain calmed down for Memorial Day. Kali Herf and Terry Bancel danced to “My Funny Valentine." Christoph Jacques and his son Hugo leaned against one another as Sarff read the Declaration of Independence.

Every fifteen minutes a virtual time warp of tradition was played out and 'All the Holidays All at Once' came together.

The display remains outside the museum which is on Main Street -- rain or shine.