Santa hats

It started with Albert suggesting we do a wedding and mix up the curriculum. No, it started before that, I think.

Last year's team came down hard on the Christmas lesson that in the curriculum. I knew it was bad, but the team decided it was more than bad. So in the fall I contacted a team member -- on leave of absence -- who's got an MA in TESOL and curriculum writing. I asked if he could write a new lesson for Christmas. He got excited and sent me a whole slew of lessons for Christmas. What had been one lesson among other celebrations now became a whole day of curriculum.

And why not? Isn't Christmas an important English holiday? Don't we want a chance to explain why Christmas is so enduring?

The next step was my husband remembering a man we knew who played Santa. He had a marvelous full white beard, wire rim glasses, and the whole Santa suit. Even out of costume, children in the stores would see him, stare, and ask their moms why Santa was shopping. True -- I saw it happen. But our dear Santa died a few years ago and left his suits behind. So Dave asked his widow if we could borrow a Santa suit to enhance the Christmas plenary sessions.

We stopped by the other night and got the suit -- coat, pants, boots, belt -- complete except for the hat.

When Albert suggested doing a wedding, and I responded that we were already planning to do a wedding because last year's wedding was a huge hit with the students, I thought, "Maybe someone on the team has a Santa hat."

Emails began to fly in from California, Pennsylvania, Ontario. To date we have about ten Santa hats. The more the merrier. After all, don't we say Merry Christmas.

Did you think teaching English would be this much fun?