Winter is often considered to be the most depressing time of year. The sky turns pitch black around 4 pm, the cold wind slashes across everyone’s faces, and the snow never seems to stop falling. Students from places such as California and Australia often find winter especially gloomy and have a difficult time adapting to the cold climate in Massachusetts. Despite all this, many Deerfield students find winter term to be the best part of the year because of all its special events and perks.

Perhaps Deerfield’s most famous tradition that occurs during winter term is Cookies and Cocoa. Every Friday immediately following classes, Head of School Margarita Curtis serves warm cookies and hot chocolate to the Deerfield community in the lobby of the Main School Building. Enjoying cookies and cocoa with other members of the Deerfield community is one of the best ways to celebrate a hard week of work and start the weekend.

Another tradition that many students look forward to is dress-down Fridays. Given how uncomfortable the winter weather is, it is a delight to be able to relax on Fridays by not having to wear Academic Dress. It is also extremely nice not to have weeknight sit-down dinners, so we can spend more time with friends and cheer each other up from the gloomy weather. Coordinator of Weekend Activities Brian Barbato and the Student Planning Committee make a special effort to organize many fun weekend events for the community, such as ski trips.

Of course, all these events would not be possible without the help of numerous other departments at Deerfield. The dining hall staff works many extra hours late into the night in order to accommodate late athletic practices. The Physical Plant staff and the grounds crew do an amazing job of keeping the entire campus operational, waking up early every morning in order to clear the snow and ice from the paths. The custodial staff cleans all the slush and muck residue from the buildings, keeping campus spotless.

The Scroll editorial board would like to sincerely thank the administration, the dining hall staff, the Physical Plant, the custodial staff, and all the other adults of the Deerfield community for everything that they do to make winter term at Deerfield so much more fun and vibrant.