Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Christmas carolling in the halls

我可以唱歌嗎?

Four adorably small Taiwanese faces look up at me expectantly, their little yellow stamp cards clutched in front of them.

"OK," I say. "Go ahead!"

Their eyes widen and fix on me as they focus the entirety of their 3rd grade attention on getting it right.

"You better watch out, you better not cry! You better not pout, I'm telling you why--Santa Claus is coming to town. He's making a list..."

I can't help but smile; by halfway through the song I'm mouthing the words along with them, then wondering if I shouldn't, since the point is for them to have memorized it for themselves. But really, it's impossible not to sing--their enthusiasm and concentration makes for contagious joy.

Today at Hanmin we had a special Christmas day. All of the grades took half of the day to rotate between different stations, and every student was issued that little yellow stamp card with the word SONG written on it and space for three teachers' stamps; if they filled it in before the end of the day, they got to put their ticket in a raffle drawing.

This made for a day in which roving packs of tiny carolers roamed the hallways, grabbing willing teachers and breaking into song on a moment's notice. It literally made my day.

All of the 5th and 6th graders had learned "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer," at my suggestion; the 3rd and 4th graders had learned "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," and the 1st and 2nd graders had learned "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." I got mostly awe-struck 3rd graders singing just the first line of their song (though there were some brave enough to do the whole thing), and towards the end I had a tiny 1st-or-2nd grade duo brave confronting the foreign English teacher to "Wish me a Merry Christmas." I was more than happy to give them my little blue Yang yang stamp in reward for their efforts.
Good job! - Yang yang

By the last hour, I was racking my brain for all the Christmas songs I could replicate, making it through a fairly impressive repertoire and discovering that my strongest memory of the lyrics to "Oh Christmas Tree" are not actually to "Oh Christmas Tree," but to "Oh Big Green Tree," a parody version I learned for a church musical I was in back in middle school. Huh.

When I made it home, it had to be Christmastime THEN. So I turned on my Christmas lights in my room, grabbed a mug of hot chocolate, and watched the remainder of It's a Wonderful Life, then watched Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, (twice, so I could find start-and-stop points for my lesson tomorrow) and found a website offering Christmas music that I could listen to while reading--you guessed it--a Christmas book.

All in all, a pretty great way to spend the day, listening, singing, and just generally celebrating the celebration of Christ's birth! ...with Yang yang and Rudolph.

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