After thirty-nine years as a primary teacher. I thought that retirement would be a special blessing at Christmas. No more of those tricky glue and glitter projects, no more presents for umpty-leven moms and dads, no more songs (with actions) to teach for the Christmas Program, no more costumes to construct – and all to be done, of course, in between regular lessons.
Besides that, by the time school holidays came, my Christmas spirt was pretty much over and the last thing I wanted to do was face whatever lay in store for me at home. One of the perks of retirement, thought I, would be to finally do my own shopping and wrapping and decorating and baking in a calm, cool, collected manner – not in the last-minute midnight rush of my teaching days.
I don’t know if it’s a case of ‘old habits die hard’ or just a case of ‘old.’ Christmas still seems to sneak up on me and I find myself in the usual thrash. Some years I don’t even get to the Christmas cards – I think this will be one of those – and I make grand plans to send New Year’s cards or even Valentine cards instead. That doesn’t seem to happen either.
Snowman
I have a vague awareness that the Christmas preparations at school are now considered non-PC. The elaborate Christmas programs that once drew the entire community on the stormiest of nights – once at Ocean Park School, even during a power outage – have now given way to “Winter Programs.” I don’t know about the gift-making and the Christmas art projects. They may be gone just in the interest of needing time to teach the basics for those miserable federal and state mandated tests.
Perhaps none of these gloomy, Grinch-like speculations apply to our schools in the Ocean Beach School District. I really hope not. Despite the time, effort and angst that Christmas took, I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. The excitement and anticipation of little kids, many of whom, in Kindergarten and First Grade, still believed in Santa, is irreplaceable. Maybe that’s why Christmas sneaks up on me now. It’s hard to replicate that childlike wonder even in magical Oysterville.
I think that having a child (or a childlike person in our car) about the place helps to recapture some of the magic of the Christmas season. I sat in the car listening to Christmas music while Dave nipped into a little market to get coffee. The song
The song was Toyland sung by Doris Day. The words about crossing the borders of childhood and never being able to return again are so poignant and so true, but when there’s a believer in the house and you work at creating the magic that lights their eyes you get to glimpse some of your own childhood memories. Maybe you miss those sticky projects a little.