So this is Christmas

Last week in my Spoken English class we spent a lot of time talking about Christmas, which seemed a little unreal to me. In India it feels nothing like winter, let alone Christmas time. I still think it is baseball season in America and that my parents, who are both teachers, are on summer vacation. In the Land of the Perpetual Sun, it is difficult for me to imagine people in America bundled up, building snowmen, Christmas shopping, and spending time inside with family and friends to take refuge from the cold weather.

Explaining and planning lessons around the Christmas theme made it a little easier for me to get in the Christmas mood. The students here all know about Christmas, but in our little village they have never had an opportunity to hear about it from a Westerner’s point of view. I have to admit that the more I talked about how Christmas is celebrated, the more ridiculous it sounded to me. When asked who Santa Claus was, I first tried explaining about Saint Nicolas, the Patron Saint of Children but this was of little interest to them; they wanted to hear about the red suit, red cap, and the bag of gifts they have seen in pictures. As I talked about how Santa flies around the world in a sleigh and enters every home through the chimney to deposit gifts under the tree and into the stockings hung by the chimney (with care) their expressions became more and more contorted into a face that seemed to be saying “Huh?”

In my class we made Christmas ornaments out of pipe cleaners and it was a lot of fun to see the students use their creativity. At first when I handed out the pipe cleaners they kept asking me “Teacher, what do I do with it?” “Anything!” I replied as I showed them how to bend and twist them into different shapes. As they caught on to the pipe cleaners’ possibilities there was no stopping them. Then, on Christmas Eve we made Christmas cards and chaos reined my classroom. I spent time the week before cutting out different shapes and preparing all the materials, which included some glitter that was sent from America (thanks mom!). The glitter was by far the most used material and the desks and floor of the classroom sparkled with the remnants of their creations.

The culmination of the Christmas week was our Christmas Party. The students took full control of the planning as they ordered food and a cake and talked to the Principal about wearing red clothes in lieu of their uniforms. I was not allowed into the assembly hall until everything was just perfect. They even managed to find snow spray and as I entered we were all covered in wet, foamy snow. As I cut my Christmas cake the students sang We Wish You a Merry Christmas before I blew out the candles. Then, every student fed me a piece of cake, and then smeared a little frosting on my face. I had a lot of fun celebrating with my students and I appreciate their efforts to make my Christmas a very merry one!

Video can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a08VIxFrWzQ