A Holiday Greeting

December 18th, 2020

December 2020

To The Woodhall School Community,

If the boys were on campus, we would have gathered in the Poole Art Gallery for our winter holiday celebration. I ask students to present on the symbolic importance of the Christmas and Chanukah traditions, the Woodsmen perform, and we have related readings and an occasional lighthearted sketch.

About this time in the celebration, the boys' thoughts drifted to the sumptuous holiday dinner that awaits us in Velge Hall. After dinner, Santa Claus and his Elf -- always two faculty members -- arrive with boisterous hilarity to raffle off gifts from teachers and students (i.e., steak dinner from yours truly, a student leader will clean a peer's dorm room, drum lessons from Marcinek.)

Before we depart for dinner, we end the ceremony with a candle lighting ceremony. I ask community members to come forward to light a candle and share, if they wish to do so, for what or for whom they are lighting the candle. This year, we carried on this tradition, one of the oldest at the school, at the end of Fall Term. Sometimes the reflections are awkward or funny; more often than not, they are solemn and heartfelt. We depart the darkened room, illuminated only by candlelight, in silence.

The impact of this tradition this past November was similar to what it would have been in December. Yet, this November, I didn't share the poem below, which I usually do before the candle lighting ceremony. I learned of this poem when I joined my wife's family and their holiday tradition of attending The Christmas Revels in Sanders Theatre at Harvard. During the performance, "The Shortest Day" by Susan Cooper is recited.

I always remind the boys of the importance of light -- of hope and the promise of renewed life -- during this darkest time of year. This year, more than ever, we need this reminder.

The Shortest Day

By Susan Cooper

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.