Today our seniors will be hosting a Christmas Market in the Reading Room, The Thistle Shop will also be open from noon to 1:00 pm. We celebrate our Christmas Service today at 5:00 PM.  We will be sharing portions of it in tomorrow’s Daily Thistle. Following the service, the St. Margaret’s community will be sitting down for a Christmas Feast in the Dining Hall.   Following dinner, we will then gather in our historic St. Margaret’s Hall as each advent friend will deliver their stockings to one another.  All in the midst of Hot Chocolate and Christmas music. Tomorrow, I will be hosting the final Daily Thistle for the year. But join us on Christmas Eve as I will be hosting a special edition of the Daily Thistle that will include a Christmas Eve service.

This is Pearl Harbor Day

We thought we would continue with some sounds from the Tappahannock Christmas Parade that was held on Sunday.

In Alumnae News, we share the death of  The Rev. William "Pegram" Johnson  III, of Richmond, Va., who died on November 25, 2021. A Burial (Memorial) Eucharist is scheduled for 2 p.m. on January 2, 2022, at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 815 E. Grace St. in Richmond, with a reception following the service. Rev. Johnson was St. Margaret’s Chaplain in the 1970s. We will share more about Rev. Johnson in the future episodes.

Water Lane.  The Parade route found our St. Margaret’s campus front and center as the judges set up their headquarters in front of St. Margaret’s Hall.  Our new Step Team was also in the parade along with the school float.  This is actually the first time in a long time that St. Margaret’s has participated in the parade.  It is also true with the level of Christmas decorations that the school has produced this year.   It’s all part of the school’s adherence to its Episcopal tenets and just old-fashioned Christmas spirit.

Our dock is illuminated with a 20 ft Christmas tree that is easily visible from the bridge.  Special thanks to Jimmy Townsend and his facilities department for assembling it. Today the admissions team is hosting an Open House. Appearing on the main banister in St. Margaret’s are the stockings for our community.  Next Wednesday Advent Friends will deliver them to one another. Today is the formal opening for our Advent Friends - may the games begin! Girls interested in playing basketball will also be joining the Bells in the B-House for lunch today. Yesterday Mr. Hodson’s American history classes walked over the B-House for an on-site lesson of the 1766 Stamp Act Crisis.  The home was the scene of its owner, Mr. Archiiball McCall, a British Tax Collector who was dragged from the home and tarred and feathered in front of it.  The legend is that Mrs. McCall, traumatized by the event died months later - and now haunts the house as The Grey Lady.  Tonight the 8th and 9th graders will join the Bells in the B-House for pizza, tree trimming, and a movie.  They will also visit the room where the grey lady’s spirit has appeared.

Those were some of the sounds from my Chemistry lab on gases.  Yesterday was Giving Tuesday, and our $10,000 goal was surpassed with gifts approaching $15,000.  On behalf of St. Margaret’s, thank you for supporting our school in our Centennial year. We also thought we would share a conversation with Mrs. Brooke Trible Weinman we met in Atlanta Georgia this fall.

Yesterday Rev. Johnson welcomed us back from our Thanksgiving Break and spoke of the Advent Season and The Feast of Lights marking the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah in her homily. We share this as we return for the start of our 2nd Trimester, but, first, we hope you enjoy a duet performed by two of our students.

Blessings in the Christian season of Advent and the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah - The girls returned to campus into the late hours as they prepared for the start of the 2nd Trimester.  This will be the last year of our trimester structure as St. Margaret's will move to semesters next year.  The girls returned to campus into the late hours as they prepared for the start of the 2nd Trimester.  This will be the last year of our trimester structure as St. Margaret's will move to semesters next year.  

Today we bid farewell to our students as St. Margaret’s begins its Thanksgiving Break, trimester exams concluded today.  Last night a handful of students enjoyed sitting on the dock under a full moon with the moonlight reflecting off the river.  It was a brilliant evening in the blessing of our riverside campus.

On behalf of the faculty and staff, we also thank Virginia Ferguson and Autumn Courtney as our official hosts of The Daily Thistle.  We thought they, too, deserved a break - as the two of them have hosted almost 70 episodes this year.  

In January 1989, the announcement that Margaret Robinson Broad would fill the role of headmistress was made.  At the time, Mrs. Broad had been working at st. Margaret's for nine years, first as a French teacher and department head; then, as the Academic Dean.   November 16, 1989, a celebratory service was held in Ball Memorial gymnasium to celebrate the ministry of Mrs. Broad, Saint Margaret's 10th head of school

Yesterday we celebrated St. Margaret's Day or, as it is often called in Scotland, the feast day of St. Margaret. 

Today we share some sounds of the celebration of St. Margaret.