>I finished reading the book The Best Christmas Pageant Ever to my class today. Sixth graders, remember, with the beginnings of middle-school angst, ‘cool’ attitude, and a lot of excess pre-holiday energy. If you’ve never read it, the book tells the story of a standard church pageant disrupted by a rowdy family of kids who don’t know the Christmas story, much less understand the etiquette of a church play. They turn up for Sunday School at first because they hear a rumor that there’s free food to be had.
Through the turmoil of casting, rehearsing, and the disaster of dress rehearsal, the nasty Herdman kids keep everyone on their toes. They bully their way into the main roles. They resist the status quo, asking questions like, “Who is this Herod guy, anyway?”
Eventually, the pageant goes on. It’s not your typical Christmas show. ‘Mary’ burps the baby loudly, the shepherds are truly afraid of the Angel (she’s beaten most of them up on occasion), and the Wise Men offer a ham from the family’s donation basket instead of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But when all is said and done, there’s a feeling of calm, an overall realization that maybe it really was like this was for the Holy Family. Maybe the glorified paintings and perfect-hair Marys weren’t as realistic as this one, the rowdy girl with a black eye saying, “Hey! Get your hands off the baby!”
A girl in my class came up to me at recess this morning right after I finished the book. She said very thoughtfully, “You know, I think that pageant was exactly right. It wasn’t fancy, it wasn’t fake, and the kids in it really had a chance to think about and understand the story. All Christmas pageants should be like that.”
I had a lump in my throat. This young woman is barely 11 years old, rather spacey and forgetful, and has been quite sad lately with friendships gone awry. Yet somehow, with this book, she felt touched, moved, even calm. She seemed ready to face recess and her friends again, despite the turmoil around her. Somehow, after talking to her, I could no longer play the Grinch. I couldn’t feel any Humbug, either.
Thanks, kiddo. You made my day. I hope I contributed in some positive way to yours.

>The entire school is bouncing. I expect the building itself to go boing, boing, boing any time now, with the amount of pre-holiday energy inside it. One of our specialists commented the other day, “Ms. M. has the ‘too-cool-for-school’ class this year, and you have the energetic one.” She was right. My class, full of really nice kids from wonderful parents, has turned into the elementary equivalent of Animal Planet. Since tranquilizer darts are frowned upon in public schools (I’m KIDDING, I’m kidding!), I had to resort to creative drama to bring them to attention.
My class, as a whole, was quiet exactly twice yesterday.
The questions of the day revolved around Christmas and Santa. All. Day. Long. “Is Santa real?” “How many reindeer does Santa have?” “Is Santa Claus real?” “How did all this Santa stuff start, anyway?” “Is Santa real?”
These are 6th graders, ages eleven and twelve. They’re old enough to know the truth, but do they? I can’t take a chance on destroying someone’s innocence and having their parents hit the roof. So I gave them my stock answer: it depends on who you ask. Well, that didn’t last long.
A few years ago, I took a class in storytelling from a professional storyteller. I relied on those skills to get the students’ attention yesterday. When they asked me how many reindeer there were, I stopped, put on my hmmm, there’s a story in here somewhere pose, and waited for quiet. Amazingly, quiet descended almost immediately.
“How many reindeer? Well, it depends on who you ask. If you ask Clement C. Moore, he’d have said Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, and Vixen.” They were almost nodding along with me. Some were counting on their fingers. “Now of course you recall the most famous reindeer of all.”
“Rudoph!” they chimed in.
“And Rudolph makes nine. But there’s a tenth reindeer, too. Do you know her name?”
One highly gifted child knew. “Olive!!!”
Yes, Olive the other reindeer… you know, the one who “…used to laugh and call him names.”
And that was just math class.
The “Is Santa real?” question wouldn’t die. They finally cornered me during Classroom Guidance on my “It depends on who you ask” with the statement “We’re asking you.“
Thank goodness for the Internet.
I found a copy of Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, told them the story, and read them the editorial. For those few moments, they were spellbound.
I’m not sure what kinds of tricks I’ll pull out of my hat next week. Or the week after that. Know any good holiday stories for tweens? I’ll take them!