~if you have any doubts, just ask John~

4 decades of Christmas seasons have come and gone since I first began teaching.

I have always made it the habit of trying to decorate my classroom as much as I could for the upcoming holiday.  In the early days we made green and red paper chains that were so long it took the entire class to pick one of them up so we could drape it along the windows.  We sang Christmas carols and studied the manner in which other countries celebrated the season that all kids wait for in December.  Once, when I was teaching back in Yoder, we got brave and strung popcorn and cranberries.  That might have been considered a fiasco, but then again we had fun with only minimal injuries from sharp pointed needles.  

And one thing else.
I have always had a tree for the kids to enjoy.

It takes some work to get one decorated with its lights strung properly and base securely fastened.  Allowing  kids to help with the ornaments is sometimes not the easiest of things to do.  As an adult, I have to realize the need for a gradual release of responsibility and allow kids to be kids as they place the ornaments where they see fit.  The tree might not end up looking like I imagined it would, but one thing is for certain.

It looked like the kids wanted it to look and after all, that's the whole reason for putting it up in the first place.

I never thought about it much, you know this idea of having a tree.  I liked making the room look more festive, enjoyed watching the kids decorate it, and found it a great way to build community.  Not once did I figure that it made much of an impact beyond those 3 weeks each year that it was up.  

One December morning back in Hutchinson, Kansas I found out that it did.

I was shopping at the local Walmart one mid December morning in 2007, when I came across someone who looked kind of familiar to me.  It was a man with two little children in tow and they were over in the Christmas light section of the store.  He must have gathered that I was looking at him because his gaze met mine.  Within a second or two, a smile broke out upon his face and he told his two little girls to come with him.  All he had to do was smile to make me realize that I had run across a little boy that I used to know named John who once was in a second grade class that I had taught back home in Kansas.

He gave me the biggest hug and my eyes must have filled with tears to know that he had remembered me from oh so long ago!  John introduced me to his little girls who sure looked like him in so many ways.  One was actually a second grader herself now, and her little sister had just started kindergarten.  We talked for a while and reminisced about his time in my classroom and all the children that joined us that year.  It didn't seem at all like more than 20 years could have separated the time that we were once together.  Both of us just picked up right where we had left off on the day that I said good-bye and wished him a nice summer vacation.

I asked if they were getting ready for Christmas and he said they surely were.  Their tree was up and they were just finishing up some outdoor lights when they found the need to pick up a few more sets.  Suddenly the smile disappeared from his face and his voice became a bit softer.  That little boy, now a grown man, decided to tell me something that he had on his mind.  The words he spoke have never left me.

"You know Mrs. Miller (that was my name back when he knew me), the year I was in your class was a rough spell for my parents.  They didn't have a lot of money for Christmas that year and things had been so bad that they didn't even go ahead to put up a tree for us.  The tree that you brought for us to have at school was the only one I ever had that Christmas.  I remember that you let us decorate it, just like always.  I want you to know that it meant everything to me.  Thank you."

With a warm embrace, he smiled and walked away, leading his two little ones towards the cash register to pay for what they had picked up.

His words haunted me for some time after that.  I had no idea that they didn't have enough money for a tree and now, years later, I worried that perhaps there were other things that he and his two siblings went without.  I wasn't sure how I could have missed all that.  I was his teacher for crying out loud!  

And I didn't even know.

7 classrooms more have come and gone since that chance meeting with a man that I had known many years before when he called me "teacher" each and every day of that second grade year.  I still keep putting up a tree for the kids, no matter where it is that I have found myself.  As a matter of fact, my fifth graders at Liberty helped to put their's up just yesterday.  I set up a tree these days with the sole purpose of making sure that no child has to go without a Christmas tree in their young lives.  Not every classroom has one but as long as I live and teach, every one of mine will.

There are no state standards for setting up a Christmas tree.  I can't imagine how I could tie it to any of them anyways, nor would I want to.  Yes it is true that the time spent on setting one up could well have been used for doing reading or math activities.  Every once in a while, it just seems most fitting to do something that shows students you care more about them than you care about your lesson plans. 

 It's a lesson they will always remember.
 If you have any doubts, just ask John.

~the fifth graders Christmas tree at Liberty Elementary School~

2019

All we have to do yet is add an extension cord to turn on the lights. It will be quite beautiful!