Dear Teacher in a Christmas Sweater,
I applaud your efforts. I see you trying.
Despite your matted tinsel and pitiful Charlie Brown tree, you're digging deep for Christmas cheer.
Still, it's hard when there will be no classroom visitors, stores are out of Little Debbie Christmas tree cakes, the Christmas parade was cancelled, and your options for family gatherings are looking slim.
It almost seemed like a joke when the UPS truck hauling Playstation 5's and American Girl Dolls caught on fire on the Escambia Bay Bridge, but it wasn't a joke.
It was a metaphor for the year- all our hopes bursting into flames.
What else is there to do, but turn on depressing Christmas music, bark about packages that haven't arrived, and pretend you aren't burning up while drinking hot cocoa in 80 degree weather.
On the way to work, the car radio reminds you of a depressing reality, "So this is Christmas and what have you done? Another year over and a new one just begun."
Sarah McLachlan. Please stop already, but since we are on the topic. Yes. Please let a new year begin, one with some good news for a change.
If anyone's looking for a few awesome gift ideas for me, I'll take a gift-wrapped vaccine and the lifting of a mask ordinance.
Until then, I'm going to stop trying to find joy in "normal" since it's been reduced to a pile of ashes along with a melted American Girl Doll anyway.
Instead, I want to be like those Who's down in Whoville who joined hands and sang even when all the treasures they held dear had been stolen.
Last year I read The Grinch that Stole Christmas to my ninth grade students. I made them sit criss cross applesauce in the floor and gave each of them a candy cane. They sat up close, in a tight ball, as I turned each page. They pretended to be annoyed. They probably were.
I didn't care. The teacher gets to decide what is fun. Looking back now, I am so glad we sat close when we could, and I'm glad I taught them a message I didn't even know we would all need this year.
That sly Grinch is right. Somehow or other Christmas can come just the same, especially when we realize it can come without ribbons or tags, packages, boxes, or bags.
"Maybe Christmas" as the converted Grinch concluded, "doesn't come from a store."
After a global pandemic, I now know it means much more.
Yet, like the Grinch, this epiphany didn't come without a great deal of puzzling and questioning, "How can it be so?"
-CDB