Here it is, Christmas time again, and Im left thinking of the days teaching at Marshall just before the holidays. I remember fondly all the stories my students would tell about their Christmass past, including some humorous and otherwise delightful anecdotes. Since these were 7th graders, I was a bit dismayed at the chatter in the hallways about the non-existence of Santa Claus. So in the few days before the vacation started, with time taken out of math work, I asked my students if they believed in Santa Claus. I remember the curious faces, wondering why I would ask such a silly question. There was always some brave soul who would raise a hand and gingerly tell me that he was not real. I would shake my head in disappointment and say, “That’s too bad you feel that way.” Of course, someone would say, “Do YOU believe in Santa Claus, Mr. Reynolds?” That would open the door for my story about how I believed that he was real, and most importantly so, that he had a purpose in our culture. I asked them (that would be YOU if you are a reader here!) if you had any younger brothers or sisters, say under 6 or 7 years old. Many of your hands rose on that question. So I told you how it was so important NOT to spill the beans about Santa’s non-existence. I told you stories about how he represented the essence of giving without expecting anything back, a paramount value that is good for the world. I told you how it was so hard for a kid under 6 years old to obtain that virtue without some example to look up to. Santa was the man! Now that YOU knew the truth, you told me that the wonder of Santa had faded in your mind and that you remember it being more FUN when you believed! So I told you that your fun could return if you gave the gift of believing to your younger siblings for a few years longer and it would warm your hearts like it did mine with what I did for my children. I told you my stories about the sleigh bells that I hung in the attic over my son’s and daughter’s bedroom. The bells were connected to a fishing line that ran through eye-hooks in the rafters over to a hole in my closet ceiling, connected to a wooden handle that would get used but once each year. On Christmas morning, early, I would pull on that handle. It would cause the string to lift the bells over their ceiling and then I would let them fall onto a wooden plank I had placed over the joists. The bells would thump and ring over their bedrooms! I told you how Michael would jump up out of sleep and yell, “HE”S HERE!”, then go get his sister, Brooke, up and they would run down stairs, PAST the Christmas tree surrounded by presents to the fireplace in hopes of catching the man in red leaving the scene. Of course they never did! Oh how excited they were that it was “so close” as they ran back to the tree to open presents. I looked at all of you in my classroom as I told this, and many of your eyes widened at the thought of this cool and fun idea, and some of you told me you would love to try that with your younger siblings. So delightedly we all discussed other ideas to keep the Santa “myth” alive, and I could see in some of your eyes the renewed excitement over a fun Christmas idea that could become a tradition if you would let it. We talked about how I made boot-print cut-outs from cardboard, and used them to make baby powder footprints leading from the fireplace up to my kid’s rooms; In the morning it looked like Santa had actually come by their room to peek in on them still sleeping. The footprints mysteriously disappeared (I wiped them out with my slippers as I came down the stairs behind my running children) and when they got to the fireplace and looked back for the evidence, it had “melted.” Some of you in my classroom went scrambling home that day to get ready the baby powder and make the boot-print cut-outs! In the days of class after Christmas vacation was over, we gently got back into our math work, after first asking what special presents we all got from “Santa!” I remember seeing a renewed vigor in some eyes when you told me the stories about how some of you tried the footprint idea, and how it was so much fun. I added how once I fastened a piece of red felt to the flashing of the fireplace, and how my daughter Brooke saw it and told me that Santa had ripped his coat going up the chimney. I think she still has that piece of felt tucked away in her jewelry case. My kids are grown up now. So are all of you! My daughter has two children of her own. Many of you have already past that. I still have the bells, both sets. I plan to give them to Brooke and eventually to Mike to carry on this tradition. And I remember fondly about all the discussion with you about all the Santas in the malls and the stories we would tell the younger ones to keep this exceptionally “useful” myth alive and well for future generation. No story about a person who travels so fast and so far just to give away presents all in one night can be bad, and serves as an inspiration to us all about the gift of giving! Merry Christmas to all of YOU!
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 15:16:12 +0000
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