The 75th Christmas Book
A long-standing tradition at High Mowing School.
Last week, members of the Senior Class presented the 75th Christmas Book at the annual Yule Festival.
The creation of a Christmas Book is an annual tradition at High Mowing. Every student draws, paints, or otherwise creates a page, and the senior class binds those pages into a book. The seniors then design and hand-make a case for the book, and then the book is presented as a gift to the school during the Yule Festival.
This year, the case is made entirely of wood from Abbot Hill. Constructed by Andrew Ewald ‘17, the top of the case is a checkered pattern of past and present: the lighter wood was cut this fall and is from trees on High Mowing’s conserved land, and the dark wood is re-purposed 1770s Abbot Hill lumber that was originally used in a local house.
Three festive stained-glass windows compose the sides of the case. Chenoa Cameron-Lewis ‘17, Govy Moore ‘17, and Jonathan O’Connors ‘17 each designed and made a stained-glass panel. The three pieces are connected by a single unifying ribbon weaving through them. The case is lit from the inside, which beautifully illuminates the colorful scenes.
The book is bound by a simple, elegant green cover, and it rests on a velvet cushion made by Govy Moore ‘17 and Catherine Pendleton-Wheeler ‘17. The book’s cover page, made by Ellie Sienkiewicz ’17, dedicates the book to Eunice Chalmers, and depicts symbols of the Yule Festival, scenes from Eunice’s studio, and other tributes to Eunice.
Eunice passed away unexpectedly on November 18. Eunice came to High Mowing in 1971, and she and her husband, Stephen, truly carried the spirit and traditions of the school in the decades since. Students often completed their page for the Christmas book in Eunice’s studio, and Stephen wrote many skits for the Yule Festival, at which the Christmas Book is presented.
The Christmas Book tradition began in 1942, the year the school opened. But when much of High Mowing was lost to a nighttime fire on January 18, 1970, all of the Christmas Books were lost too.
“Their burning is perhaps the greatest loss of the fire,” Mrs. Emmet wrote in her book From Farm to School. “I had always felt that those books were visible evidence of the heart of High Mowing, through work both academic and creative.”
Today, 75 years after the tradition began, the books still capture the spirit of the school.
