80. Candlelighting

While many aspects of Dalton have changed, alumni from various decades describe candlelighting in remarkably similar ways.

Candlelighting means many things for the Dalton student: a half-day of school, an assembly, and the tradition of “consecrating this house with light.” Each year, adorable children from the First Program would be gently assisted by the Head of School as they lit candles and tottered over to geometric candle-holders. High-school students, more casually dressed and confident than their younger classmates, recite lines of a poem written by Dalton alumna Nancy Cardozo ’36, before lighting their candles.

In the First Program and Middle School, students were selected to represent their grade at the assembly, but in High School you volunteered to be candle-lighter; which is how I represented my class twice. The first time, in Second Grade, I was terribly late to school, as getting dressed that day had become a complicated and elaborate endeavor. My parents came to the assembly, taking photos from the balcony, as I walked across the stage in a remarkably poofy dress. In High School, I don’t even know if I mentioned it to my family beforehand. As an easily embarrassed teen, I think I was afraid that they would insist on sitting in the balcony again. More casual and confident this time, like the high-schoolers I remembered watching throughout the years, I played my part in consecrating the house, or auditorium, with light.

This tradition heralded not only the beginning of the holiday season, but an important milestone as well: Winter Break.
—Jillian Saperstein ’04