Twas ten school days before Christmas vacation...

I made the critical error of wandering around my elementary school to check out the classrooms of my colleagues and returned to my darkened room with a crushed spirit. It looked like Christmas had thrown up all over the building, spewing holiday cheer and good will EVERYWHERE. My unadorned walls were reminiscent of the scene in "When the Grinch Stole Christmas" after that heartless creature had looted Who-ville...leaving an insignificant amount of ornaments without even a minute piece of mistletoe to be seen. What was I to do? I wondered dismally, "harrumphing" when I should have been "ho-ho-ing."

Suddenly I remembered an idea that I had put on the back-burner last year after I had seen a door decoration of a stable door with reindeer heads peering out. I spoke not a word and went straight to work, digging through ten tons of construction paper, I pulled red out with a jerk. I cut out stables well past my favorite 8 o'clock shows, yelping in pain when I got a paper cut under my nose. Alright, I'm done with my Clement Clarke Moore impression now.

http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/holidays/
christmas-ideas/scandinavian-christmas-decorations#slide-3

I wrestled a 3-D model of a construction paper deer head mount into place and thought to myself, "Yeah...I can teach kids how to do this." and went home to sleep with visions of super-plum fairies dancing in my head, not anticipating the nightmare that was to greet me the next day when I would attempt to instruct sixteen 8- and 9-year-olds on the intricacies of cutting and assembling a construction paper deer mount. It would have been quicker to arm them all, chaperone the group out to the woods, and bag our own real deer to mount than to try and accomplish what I experienced today.

I wish I could say that I was a kind and loving teacher, moving though the room with a quiet grace as I guided attentive pupils in the process of reindeer development. Instead, I was a crazed lunatic screaming, "The nose goes on the FOLD, the nose goes on the FOLD" a zillion times. One of my little honeys skipped the order of events and colored her ornament first. According to my verbal and written (and verbal and verbal and verbal) directions, students must first have completed ALL their morning work for the entire week, then colored in an ornament to then be "rewarded" with the making of a 3-D construction paper reindeer. I had reached my limit well before this little cherub approached me with her ornament, expecting to now be able to make her deer. "Did you complete your morning work," I asked her, over the fifty voices in my classroom asking for help and the fifty voices in my head shrieking words inappropriate for a 4th grade classroom. "We-ll-ll...no-oo-oo," she smiled, twirling an ankle with studied charm, "I thought I'd do that afterwards." "Oh, did you," I snarled, my heart immediately growing two sizes too small. I took her little paper ornament and shredded it, sending shock-waves through the room and my student scrambling back to her desk to complete her morning work. That's what Christmas is all about, Mrs. Mosiman, you heartless...grinch.

And they heard her exclaim as the funny men in the white coats rolled her away, "Merry Christmas to all but make sure your morning work is completed first!"