‘Tis the season, baby!

I really do wonder why it is our cultural imperative to cram as many life-affirming events as possible into the month of December. Perhaps it’s because it’s cold and gray, not enough snow on the ground, it’s been winter for a while and we just need something to do. And perhaps for those without children, it’s not like this at all, though even just the parade of office Christmas obligations is enough to mess the month up. (By the way, kudos to the Albany Bloggers for putting together a Secret Santa system — if I ever did Secret Santa, I’d do yours. But I don’t.)

In addition to The Nutcracker Factory, which comes to an end this weekend, this has been a busy week. Last night, the Sixth Grade Concert, a concerted effort featuring the orchestra, the chorus, and three bands. My recollection of school days, admittedly biased, is that strings were the thing, but today it appears that brass rules, and the sixth grade has so many heavy metal instruments that they’ve had to break them up by houses. Hannah was first violin, and they sounded great. But it went well and quickly, all one can ask of a school concert — though I will say that some of the teachers could stand a little refresher in public presentation. Then, this morning, the middle school Principal’s Breakfast to honor the top six students in each grade, in each house. Three times three times six, all individually named and honored, a very sweet ceremony. I was surprised by how many of the kids and parents I knew. (I want to write about all this community and connection, what it all means, but right now I haven’t the time or the head for it.) My daughters triple-dog-dared me to tell the principal that I knew her from when she taught at my high school, and so I did. I never had her for a teacher, but I told her I had been one of the “Jean Rose Crowd,” and she said that she and Jean still see each other all the time, and that she’s still teaching part-time. Mrs. Rose was the English teacher who made it all click somehow. It wasn’t that she introduced me to the wonders of literature — that I already had. It was more that she got it, too, and so many of the other teachers didn’t. If a teacher gets that what he or she is teaching is cool — that’s 80 percent of it. And yet, most of them don’t.

And today, just to grind the week down a little more, I have to fly down to DC (it’s our nation’s capital, you know), do a meeting, then hang out for many hours waiting for my flight back. Doesn’t that sound glamorous?