As we prepare to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus through prayer and quiet contemplation, teachers on the TES online staffroom have been sharing their memories of school Christmases.
Nomad recalls her infant class drawing pictures of the nativity story. One child showed Joseph holding what appeared to be a spider but turned out to be a flea. “Why the flea?” asked nomad. “It turned out that the Angel Gabriel appeared and told Joseph to take Mary and the baby and ‘flea’ to Egypt.”
What a delightful family portrait that makes. Almost as heart-warming as the picture conjured by fenty’s Year 5 class, who were role-playing the moment when Mary tells Joseph about the angel’s visit. When “Rob”, playing Joseph, initially just shrugged and asked what was for tea, fenty asked him to imagine what it was like to come home from a hard day at work to be told your girlfriend is pregnant with God’s child. That seemed to do the trick. “He considered for a moment, then glared at Mary and snapped, ‘You bloody liar,’” fenty says. Probably not quite the reaction teacher was looking for, but all contributions are valuable. Rob’s Joseph would have been even less pleased had he read the account of the immaculate conception according to one of lizwinton’s class. “Mary was working in the garden when the Angel Gabriel went down on her,” the Year 4 girl wrote. No wonder the shepherds were keeping a look-out.
Santa has his list of who’s been naughty and nice, but doomzebra’s version eschews such nonsense. Instead he concentrates on the things that really get his goat at Christmas. Among them are dates, otherwise known as “candied cockroaches”, paper hats that are too small and cheese with fruit in it. All very well, but his patience really runs thin when it comes to the annual game of Pictionary. “Draw it properly in the first place,” he demands of those whose doodlings are indecipherable. “Repeatedly tapping your vague sausage-shaped squiggle with two triangles coming out one end does NOT make it any clearer.”
MisterFlibble has an alternative festive game: watch the seasonal episodes of the soap operas and have a drink whenever someone says they want a nice family Christmas. The result: ”... trollied in half an hour”.
It will be anything but turkey and Christmas pud for chocolatebox9, whose fantasy menu for the big day is a meze of olives, bread, hummus, cheese and salads. ResourceFinder and cosmos are just two of the posters who come out in support of the traditional feast, but for some it is not the food that is important, but who is serving it. George Clooney, Richard Hammond, Jenson Button and James Martin will be on waiter duties at LittleMissCurious’s fantasy meal. Chocolatebox9 has another use for James Martin, though. “He can do me one of his desserts and then get the bus home,” she says. There’s Christmas hospitality for you.
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