LET’S MAKE AN EXCEPTION... IT BRINGS US JOY
BY THIS time in the school term, teachers are falling apart, and their idea of the Christmas spirit might reasonably involve a large glass of Christmas pudding-flavoured vodka.
Particularly in primary schools, children become very excited about the imminent arrival of Mr Claus, while their teachers deal with Christmas concerts, Christmas baking, Christmas carolling in the old folks’ home and Christmas everything else.
At one time, they could at least anticipate a wheelbarrow full of touching gifts – enough wee bars of soap to cleanse a stable – but in these days I understand there’s less gift-giving lest staff give in to favouritism.
I might, incidentally, have shown some favour to a parent who gave me a car, but was not swayed by an eraser shaped and smelling like a banana, even if it is on my desk 35 years later.
At the heart of all this festivity, of course, lies the great tradition of the Christmas Nativity, inevitably not seen for the past two years, and hanging in the balance as I write.
It’s up to ‘the science’ and to head teachers to decide on this, but there are plenty of crowds in pubs and clubs, so I hope that an exception might be made for this part of our heritage, which brings so much joy.
The school I latterly worked in was blessed with two annual Nativities and they were sources of wonder and great amusement, not always intended. There was a Nursery Nativity (a fairly insane event which left parents delirious with glee, as some child – a sheep, a tree or the Mother of God – yelled out, ‘Hello Granny, hellloooo Graaaannny’, causing Granny, full of love and wonder, to shout back).
And there was the Junior School Nativity, a very, very different affair, with production values worthy of Cameron Mackintosh, actual choreography and lovely costumes. I will not readily forget the Three Wise Men from P2 – one sweet child, one dilly and one sportsman. The dilly forgot his gift and stared blankly into the lights at the front of the stage until the sporty boy, clearly destined for great leadership roles, shouted ‘get your gift!’, thrusting his own myrrh at the poor child as an example.
We have to remember, as we adults make our lofty and informed decisions about safety, the fleeting nature of all this – these younger primary school children have only known pandemic school and will be older soon enough.
WHEN a harassed parent is feeling alienated by their gruff adolescent there’s a golden thread which links that bleary-eyed teenager to a cardboard manger and a best friend, aged five, making a star appearance as a goat.
And there are photos for Granny to frame for the mantelpiece, there to embarrass some wee boy as he heads towards manhood, and his own turn to sit in a school hall somewhere.
He will be immersed in an atmosphere high on excitement, sugar and the Christmas buzz, as his own child spills out onto a makeshift stage bedecked with fairy lights to say her one line: ‘Is this the baby Jesus?’
It has been a tough time in schools. Let’s hope we can relax enough to allow for the collective ‘aaaaaw’ that brings together parents and grandparents at this wonderful time of year.
But remember your frankincense, oh wise men of Primary 2.