| Christmas Festival |
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Advent: Now comes the hour foretold, a God from the Irish The celebration of Advent starts 4 Sundays before Christmas Day. Students and staff celebrate the first week of Advent, and subsequent weeks, with a special Advent Assembly. It can be a challenge to create a mood of patience and preparation for the Coming that Advent promises. The mood of Summer which surrounds a Southern Hemisphere Christmas tends to draw us out into the elements rather than draw us into the contemplative mood that awaits the return of the sun at the Midwinter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and the birth of the Son three days later. As the school year draws to a close and many students leave the school site for camps or work weeks we feel very tangibly this disengagement and looseness. A lot of time is spent outside enjoying “the sun in the heavens” rather than “the sun in our hearts”. The Advent assemblies and the journey of Advent in the younger classes are an opportunity for quiet breathing in what can be an outwardly hectic time. We give ourselves the space for stillness and receptivity into which something can be born. If Advent is carried over four weeks a festive space can be prepared by introducing each week one of the four Kingdoms of Nature. In the first week the minerals, the second the plants, the third the animals and the fourth the human with the arrival of the shepherds, of Joseph and Mary and finally on Christmas Day the Christ Child. For the first Advent Assembly, our Advent Garden is filled with rocks and crystals, clay, coal and pumice—all those manifestations of the earth element in their extraordinary beauty or quiet plainness that can only make us wonder “what is earth?” At the second assembly the plant world arrives in the Advent Garden, particularly the lily and the rose, those two archetypes which gift humanity with fruit and grains. In New Zealand the flax and the manuka are representatives of these two families that both have gifts of healing. Often the school year finishes before holding 4 Advent Assemblies. When this happens the School Community is encouraged to finish the process, continue the story at home and create an Advent tableau. Animals and people can be simply crafted from clay or from fleece or from favourite toys. Carol EveningMid-way through December the School Community holds a very special Carol Evening; the focus is on both the graduating Class 12 students, and the future Class 1 students. Class 12 brings into the school the new Class Ones who are dressed in white and each carrying a lily for their new class teacher. The Carol Evening has always been a dress up occasion and families are asked to help mark this celebration by encouraging children, even if they do not have best clothes, to at least change into something with a sense of formality for the occasion. The Classes present their rehearsed Christmas items and the Community joins in the singing of well known carols. To Class 12, it is farewell and to the new Class 1, it is welcome. The Community encourages and wishes each class success in their new stage of life. Shepherds’ PlayThe annual Christmas gift from Staff to students and Community is the Shepherds’ Play. This is performed for Classes 1—7 on their last morning of school. The Community performance is the following Sunday evening. The Shepherds’ Play is the middle section of a trio of plays discovered on the island of Oberufer on the Danube River in the middle of the 19th Century. They had been performed there for countless generations and the various parts had been played by men of the same families over the years and passed down from father to son. The story is essentially that of the Christ Child’s birth as told in the Gospel of St Luke. With a much-loved mixture of humour and wisdom, the shepherds finally arrive at the stable and present the new King with their simple gifts. There is mystery and wisdom in the words, and much hilarity from the cast. It is presented with love and as a gift to Students and the School Community.
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