Somewhere, on some post, in this blog, there’s a conversation regarding what is affectionately known as The Christmas Class from Hell (perhaps it’s in the comment section of, The Christmas Party. I haven’t found the exchange yet.) However, as we head into fall, “School”, a.k.a “The Study”, gets closer and closer to it’s annual holiday usurpation — although it is possible that current morphing (such as changing the group’s name from “School” to “The Study) has the group skulking away from it’s annual tradition (cough).
However, at a some point the illustrious institution established an annual holiday bash. “School/The Study” pitched its party to us as “a gift to your teachers and sustainers”. The “youngest class” would be guided into greatness by members of the “older class” (those who “had been doing THE WORK longer”). The “older class” would do a boat load of prep — food prep for example — and cart it all off to NY to present to Queen Sharon (I think — those of you who experienced the older class Christmas party, please correct me if I’m wrong).
As far as I know, the Christmas Party was mostly a love-fest of self congratulation, however, one year this was not the case. Recently, the blog Seeing Into the Heart of Things, provided an inside look into the disaster known as The Christmas Class from Hell. Here is an excerpt:
The night of the party came and it was all a blur to me. It was the usual. Usually Sharon was outrageously late and a dinner that had been planned for 10 pm might not happen until 2 am. Everything was always at the whim of Sharon: when she arrived, what she did, what she ate and drank, who she brought with her from New York, what time she left, what she said (she frequently addressed the whole group)…
I remember that during the presentations, one of the younger students came over to me and said that she thought she had seen Sharon across the room complaining or unhappy about something. I told her that everything was going great and not to worry.
So, the class came and went and then we had the “impressions class” several days later…