Christmas Memories

In an elementary school, the last week before Christmas is a hectic one. For some reason, the kids are all revved up, not wanting to multiply 9 x 8, or write complete sentences. They're not on their best behavior, despite the undeniable fact that Santa lurks right around the corner.

As a child, I remember believing that I had to be "especially good" before Christmas or Santa would just skip right over me. I also believed the story that Santa would only come if we were in bed. If I got up to even just go to the bathroom, and it happened to be the exact moment that Santa arrived, he would not come in. On Christmas Eve, I tried to go to bed early so Santa would have plenty of time in which to do his good deeds for us. Oh, I was gullible.

But the year we got bicycles was probably the high point of my believing anything. My parents had bought us new bicycles and stored them in the garage. In order to keep us out of the garage, they told us that an exterminator had sprayed a toxic lethal poison in that garage to kill bugs. If the door was opened even a crack, the person would instantly die. Not once did we wonder about parents who would allow such a noxious chemical to be sprayed in our garage. We just stayed out of the garage and hope that no fumes would leak under the door. For two weeks, we breathed a sigh of relief that we had made it through each day. Even on Christmas, when the bikes were delivered by Santa, and the toxic poison seemingly and mysteriously evaporated, I didn't figure out that the bikes had been in the garage all along.

But the last couple of days of school have been filled with gift-giving, poinsettias, singing, cookies, candy and good wishes. I wore my 3 jingle bell necklaces every day and alternated my snowflake/snowman earrings daily. I was jolly. I was festive. I was in the spirit.

Today was Polar Express Day. We love the book and the movie. The movie was shown to the classes during the day and everyone, kids and staff, dressed in their jammies.

At the end of the day, I hopped aboard one of the buses to keep order with the kids on their last day. The bus dropped me off about 4 blocks from school. You may have seen me, in my candy cane jammies, Santa hat, decked out with jingle bell necklaces with a walkie talkie in my hand. Ah! Christmas memories.