Holly, Jolly Christmas

Alright, so I know I'm about 5 months late with this post (what?! Five months!! Holy cow!), but a little bit about the Christmas celebration at school just for you.

First let it be said that it was shenanigans. The Santa costume the directors bought was supremely awesome, but also blond; Santa's from Sweden, you know. Also, I know the shades make me look either a1) really ridiculously hip, or b2) slightly Unibomber-esque, but because I'm more of a Mrs. Claus by nature, and one of the few teachers at the school, sunglasses were needed to disguise my lady eyes. Stuffing for my belly full o' jelly was not provided, so I brought a pillow - brilliant, but at the same time I definitely should'a turned it horizontal as my Santa was more along the lines of Dolly Parton at a Christmas extravaganza.

The days events began with a song and dance from each class, you'll remember my children's performance (at the end of this post)? They were a little shy this time around so I had to get up there and perform with them which was all well and good, but then I had to slip out to change oh-so quickly into the magical man. 

I waited on the stairs for the singing and dancing to finish and started sweating quite a bit, believe it or not - beards are hot! Then the occasional child or two would have to use the bathroom and be ushered into the elevator, only to wiggle around wondering why they weren't being allowed to look in the other direction. SANTA!

As it goes with most things at my school, I didn't really know what was going to go on until I sat in Santa's chair, and those naughty and nice charts we wrote for each student that morning, I read them off for each student... all 48 - 65ish of them. It's actually quite difficult speaking in a deep baritone even as an alto, and to make it loud enough for all to hear? Mi-oh-my! Not to mention the beard fibers kept getting in my mouth, my glasses were sweating off, the children were trying to look close to figure out if it was really me, and I was handling pages in loose-fitting felt gloves. I'm honestly not complaining about any of this by any means, it was so much fun and more often than not I had to stifle my laughter as I bellowed, "Now David, can you promise Santa that you're going to do your best not to eat your pencils and erasers in Kathleen Teacher's class any more?" and the doe-eyed child would look up at me and nod earnestly, hands out, waiting for his present. Picking boogers, fighting, not doing homework, running in the classroom and eating paper were all on the naughty list. I said two-to-three nice things and one naughty (let's work on it) thing for each kid. 

Needless to say, the assembly lasted quite a while. There were a few minutes - I can't remember why - that us English teachers had to stall (maybe the tape ran out?) and we let the kids ask me questions. It was fun to work on some improv. Mrs. Claus was busy baking the elves cookies while they cleaned up the workshop and got ready for next year. I planned on hitting up Antarctica after my sleigh ride, with the missus, for a change of pace and to visit my penguin friends. The reindeer were on the roof, and oh - could I name them... well, why don't I see if the children could instead. Then there was my most favorite of all, I was wearing sunglasses because I just had lasik surgery. Hey, I thought it was clever.

It was a sweaty and snowless Christmas Eve day, but it was magical and fun all the same. I'm really happy that I got to do it, and even though most kids knew it was me, I tried to convince them that I had food poisoning instead and I was so sad that I didn't get to meet Santa before he sprang to his sleigh, but I said I thought I heard him call out "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"