Santa Lucia; Annual Fund; Happy Holy Days; and Mutual Belonging

Dear Members of The Waldorf School of Santa Barbara Community,

This Monday Señora Marcela's class celebrated Santa Lucia Day, a day -- because of its shortness -- John Donne called "the year's midnight." In this Waldorf tradition -- based on a European one -- Santa Lucia (who this year was Nina Gill) leads a procession of her peers through the school singing and offering traditional rolls (flavored with honey, saffron, and raisins) to the other children. As Santa Lucia -- dressed in white, wearing her wreath of seven lighted candles; her maidens of honor and star boys in tow -- enters each classroom, all of her procession singing, the mood of that classroom suddenly changes into something at once solemn, awed, and glad. According to legend, Santa Lucia brought "food and aid to Christians hiding in the Roman catacombs, wearing a candle-lit wreath on her head to light her way and leave her hands free to carry as much food as possible." This legendary act was one of ingenuity, magnanimity, and great beauty, an act we re-enliven every year.

Recently one WSSB parent told us he appreciates Waldorf education because of the "reverence" and because it "acknowledges life." A tradition such as Santa Lucia Day does just this: it stops us, hushes us into remembering this beautiful mystery of which we all are part.

If you're grateful your child attends a school where such a reverent festival takes place, a school that has been open for joyous, rigorous, in-person, on-campus learning (at a time when nearly 93% of households with school-age children in our country report they're engaged in some form of distance learning), one way to express your gratitude is by giving today to our 2020-2021 Annual Fund drive.

As you may know, our Annual Giving Campaign is our primary fundraising strategy to cover the gap between tuition and our operating costs. Your gift will help us remain resilient in these complex, challenging days. We are bent on 100% community participation. Click on the link to give (a large or medium or small gift) today:

https://waldorfsantabarbara.org/annual-giving-fund

Also: we would like to acknowledge parents Tina Kalkowski, Katie Hames, Lindsay Batsford, and Stacy Zumbroegel for helping make our campus so beautiful. We appreciate your hard, nourishing work.

We also would like to thank Marissa Elliott for steadfastly (year in and year out) holding key WSSB fundraisers. We are very grateful, Marissa!

Finally, thank you Ms. Hagen for filling the school (and our homes) with the sound of music. Hearing these holiday songs has helped us all. (And thank you Shemsu Lefevre for your technical support.)

Happy holy days,

The WSSB Admin Team

PS -- The pensée of the day is by Brother David Steindl-Rast:

"Wherever we look these days, we find society split in two. Neither of the two sides is listening to the other, yet nothing could be more urgently needed. 2021 calls for a New Year’s resolution to seek out those whose opinions are the opposite of our own and to start listening to them; to bracket for a while convictions that divide us, facing instead our shared problems and tackling them together. If this year of worldwide suffering has made us ready to listen that deeply, every word that comes out of our silence will be a 'yes' to mutual belonging. It will be a word of love, and love is all-powerful."
PPS -- The poem of the day is the last paragraph of Dylan Thomas's great story "A Child's Christmas in Wales" (a story Dorie recently shared with the 6th Grade class):

"Always on Christmas night there was music. An uncle played the fiddle, a cousin sang "Cherry Ripe," and another uncle sang "Drake's Drum." It was very warm in the little house. Auntie Hannah, who had got on to the parsnip wine, sang a song about Bleeding Hearts and Death, and then another in which she said her heart was like a Bird's Nest; and then everybody laughed again; and then I went to bed. Looking through my bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steadily falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept."