CATCH MY WORDS to find help with teaching strategies, resources, or to enjoy a laugh or music. Blog connected to Catch My Products, the gifted department store with resources for K - 12.
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My humorous thoughts about life.
"My Humorous and Helpful Thoughts About Teaching / Educational Resources for Your
Classroom / Music and Random Fun"
Ever wonder what Jews do on Christmas? Years ago we escaped to Cancuun, but unfortunately this didn't become our holiday tradition. After all, traditions must happen yearly.
Then there were the years we dined on Chinese food, since these are the only restaurants open on Christmas Eve. This too did not become our holiday tradition because we don't do this consistently every year.
Starry Nights
If tradition means doing something annually, it looks like we've found one. For the past three years or so, we've spent Christmas Eve freezing our butts off working the Christmas light show at Shelby Farms. Although we're in the south where one can wear T-Shirts in early December, something happens around December 24th as the temperature drops that one night we're working outside. It's our own slice of h*ll, but it's only fair since we don't have to lug heavy trees into our dens or risk our lives on ladders while hanging Christmas lights.
We have our own holiday that doesn't ask for much: Hannukkah, Channuka, Hanukkah, Chanukah. We celebrate the miracle of one bottle of oil lasting eight days. I have Crisco in my pantry that's lasted anywhere from eight months to eight years. Maybe we should celebrate it too... or throw it out. Actually, the oil might be one of the younger items in our closet. Which reminds me of my mother.
Mom had a lonely pickle in a jar sleeping in the back of our fridge for years. My friends and I used to entertain ourselves by going through her refrigerator and laughing at the mold. Who knows? Maybe something in her fridge was from the holidays.
You may wonder what kind of teacher I am. To sum it up, I fit the poem about the girl with the curl in the middle of the forehead. When I'm good, I'm very, very good, but when I'm bad, I'm horrid.
Many years ago–first graders who are now fixing to graduate college–I taught a little boy named Aki (pronounced "a key"). The kids rushed into my classroom and said, "Do you want us to get Aki?"
With my brain in the off mode, I said, "What do you need a key for?"
A little girl said, "You know, Aki!"
"A key to what?" I still didn't get it.
This banter went back and forth with me thinking. What did they need to open and why? Finally it hit me. "Ohhh, Aki! Sure."
Of course it could be worse, like the time the secretary shouted over the intercom, "We need Abeer in the office!"
