More Holiday Memories

At my (Episcopalian) elementary school, our biggest production was the annual "Lessons and Carols" Christmas songfest. Every year, on the first weekend of December, we would put on a very long program of everyone’s favorite Christmas carols (if your favorites included the Jesus-friendly "O’ Little Town of Bethlehem" and "I Saw Three Ships" as opposed to the more secular "Jingle Bells") intermixed with readings about the birth of Christ. (Even as I’m typing this, I want to write that the show amounted to three hours, but I’m sure that someone will correct me or balk. Just let me assure you that "Lessons and Carols" felt four times longer than it actually was. And, that’s not just my childhood attention span talking - my father would agree.) Each year concluded with rounds of applause and all of our teachers crying as we sang "O’ Holy Night" in the candlelight in French. Despite the fact that "Lessons and Carols" led to massive adoration, praise, and clapping, there were few events I despised as much as it. We always started practicing about two weeks after school started in August (seriously), and we spent a big part of every week trapped in music class with our obviously-frustrated-with-the-direction-of-his-career teacher as he ranted at us and held out the part of playing the triangle like it was the equivalent of be given a puppy or taken to the chocolate store with an unlimited budget. Plus, since the program never changed, it’s not like there was a lot of variety to the days...or years. Also, when we consider the fact that I’m tone deaf, I think you can imagine how much I got yelled at and how many practices ran long because of all the mid-song stops made when "someone was off-key." Unfortunately still, as much as I dreaded every day of the fall because it involved "Lessons and Carols" practice, nothing was as bad as my third grade year. Third grade was the first year that you had to make it through the entire "Lessons and Carols" program in the church. Students in kindergarten through second grade got to enter the chapel for a few songs and then leave to return to their classrooms when they were done. For third graders, those days of ease and mirth were over. About two weeks before the big "Lessons and Carols" of ‘88, the entire school was gathered in the church for yet another grueling rehearsal. I was in the row only a few feet away from the organ, so my music teacher’s stare added to the intense pressure I was already feeling. (Plus, from the pews, if our French teacher didn’t tear up before the afternoon was done, we hadn’t done a good job.) Somewhere in the midst of "Once in Royal David’s City," I could see red lines in front of my face and I felt like I was losing my balance. (I didn’t yet have the stamina that the fifth graders had acquired, and "not locking my knees" was still just words.) A few seconds later, I vomited in front of the entire kindergarten through eighth grade populations. When you haven’t yet turned ten, few things are more embarrassing than throwing up... in public...surrounded by your less-than-mature peers. But, perhaps the worst part was that since I didn’t have a temperature afterwards, the school nurse convinced my parents that I didn’t need to be taken out of school for the rest of the day. Instead of getting to hide in my house watching soap operas and eating jell-o with my nanny, I was given a sweatshirt from the "Lost and Found" box (after all, my original outfit had puke on it) and sent off to join my class in the lunchroom where Jenny Knowles was enjoying her fifteen minutes of fame by recounting the tale of standing next to me during what she termed "the big splat." Yes, it was a good day. But, hey, at least it wasn’t my fourth grade Christmas when I learned that there was no Santa Claus.