Waldorf Academy Lights up the Season with Festivals & Spirals

“It’s already so dark out,” said my child on our walk home from school recently. 

For centuries, and across cultures, we have borne witness to the cycle of the seasons.  As we move towards the shortest day and longest night of the year, we turn to light as a source of strength and warmth. 

This evolution of light—which reflects the silent orbiting of our planet through the vastness of the universe—is celebrated in many ways: Diwali, Santa Lucia, Winter Solstice Festivals, Lantern Walks, Kwanzaa, Advent, etc.  

At Waldorf Academy we honour many of these diverse and universal traditions, and also use this time of darkness to find light in each other, and in ourselves. 

In celebration of the light of community, we recently transformed our school into a winter wonderland for families to embrace the rhythms of the seasons, and revel in the magic of childhood. Our Winter Fair featured child-centred activities like candle-dipping, an enchanting puppet play, visits to the Good Witch and a ‘Snowdrop Market’ scattered throughout our campus. Alumni returned to relive the magic of the Woodland Pond: a classroom fully transformed into a forest with real trees, leaves, starlight and reflective pools where a quiet wish could be made in exchange for a wood pendant. Families communed together in the auditorium, serenaded by musical colleagues and friends. 

The Spiral Walk is another time-honoured tradition in many Waldorf schools, beckoning each of us to find the light in ourselves. A cedar spiral caringly created on the floor of a darkened room, dotted with candles, draws each walker inward to ignite their own flame. Walking a spiral—whether child or adult—creates a form of momentum, and changes one’s sense of balance. It is an awakening and transformation of sorts, a moment of quiet in our often frenetic lives, a chance to experience something reverential and infinite in the midst of holiday materialism. 

However your family honours the light in yourselves, each other, and the world around you, we wish you a beautiful festive season!