Santa has immiators: they're Dads'.

Wow.  I'm in my last week, three days left, frame of mind as a preschool teacher before the Christmas break and I feel like I accomplished everything except world peace with my preschoolers.  Candy canes and all!

Last time, I was fretting about our dear friend C, who did not want to be Santa and dismissed any plea from either a three year old or 26 year old.  In addition, I had reindeers who didn't want to be reindeers and experiencing stage fright for the very first time..badly. Well the performance day arrived and C was the most amazing 3 year old Santa, stage fright reindeer became the most outgoing and loudest reindeer I've ever witnessed, and more so - they all sang :)

Whoo-hoo!

My 3 year olds weren't the only ones to let me down either.  The remaining classes did fantastic, the crowd turnout was perfect, and the views of watching new families mingle with one another was very satisfying.  We only had a small hiccup with locating a Santa for two of the classes because originals bailed.  But luckily, a couple Dads' saved the day.  What became really entertaining was trying to either tell their child 1) not to say anything to their buddies that that's really their Dad sitting up there. 2) convincing them that that really IS Santa and not their Dad. or 3) that Santa has helpers..and those helpers are their Dads'.  Take your pick on which one you would most enjoy explaining to a four year old about (it was my four year old classes that were struggling to find a commited Santa!).

Despite the amount of drawbacks I could list into what I hate about planning Christmas concerts on my own (four in total), I really can't.  The list is so minimal after witnessing the kids do their performances YOU taught them and see my families being there for all the same, simple reason.  I mean, we had almost every father of each child attend, even if it meant he had to go back to work afterwards.  Satisfactory? Hardly.  More like inspiring!  It inspires me ..to keep doing what I'm doing..start thinking of ideas for next year..and most importantly, to always enjoy the appreciation of all that hard work!

By the way, instead of getting 18 different gift cards from Starbucks from my 3AM students, their parents all pitched in for a group gift instead. 

"Ms. Jenn! We bought you coffee!"

They know how to keep my heart warm.