December at Shipley: Winter Teas, the Greening of the School, Gator Aid Weekend, concerts, and celebrations. It’s a season of giving and singing, a bringing together of children and adults in all parts of the School to help others and to carry out traditions that reflect all periods of the School’s history.

Parent volunteers provided cookies for Winter Teas and decorated the School with evergreens for the holidays, activities that date from the boarding school days.

A more recent tradition is the Gator Aid Weekend, including:
The Girls’ Basketball Toys for Tots Tournament, which gathered a record number of toys for the US Marine Corps Toys for Tots program—and played some good basketball.

The family dinner to benefit the Will Trippley Fund, at which Shipley families of all ages enjoyed a convivial supper, music by an Upper School jazz trio, face painting, and balloon sculptures.

The Starfinder Passport to Excellence Program, in which over 100 people—student volunteers, coaches, and young soccer enthusiasts—participated.

Meanwhile, students throughout the School have spent hours collecting a variety of items for needy families, decorating Christmas stockings and Hanukkah bags, visiting nursing homes, “adopting” children in a homeless shelter. Heard in the Upper School hall: “Hey, I got a Christmas card from my adopted kid!” Giving brings its own joys.

And there’s the gift of music as students in all divisions shared their mastery of a variety of repertoire on a variety of instruments—from tiny Lower School violinists to Upper School jazz ensembles. The traditional finale in the Upper School is the Holiday Assembly, which included a retelling of the great mysteries—Hannukkah and Christmas—with appropriate music and lighting of candles. As Upper School math teacher and service coordinator, Josh Berberian said at the Holiday Assembly, this is, indeed, a season of light—of finding the light within oneself and passing it to others. It’s something that Shipley does well.

For another view of the season from Middle School English teacher, Elizabeth Dougherty, inspired by a poem by Oliver Herford, click here.