Santa

Hello monday monkeys. Ive had a full on day today... observed by the head of english AND the headmaster. eeks!! 

Basically, each department is going to have to have a big "review". Where the headmaster will assess how well they are doing, checking through the lessons, the marking, the progress and target tracking etc... its a big deal! Well since apparently the english dept are the bestest and most organised. HOLLA! they have chosen us as the first dept to be reviewed. Now this is all well and good, but im an ART teacher primarily... i just teach a bit of english here and there. I do enjoy it and i think im halfway decent at what i teach, but its still not my subject of specialism. Which always means that niggly little voice pips up occasionally and says "youre a big FRAAAAAUD!!!"So im kindof always waiting for someone to jump out and be like "wait a darn tooting minute... YOURE not a proper english teacher!!!" which is silly, cos this will be my 3rd year teaching it. but still.... 

...it was SCARY!!!!!

Anyways. back to business people. 

Today is DAY 3 of the Christmas Challenge and im all over it. Pretty proud of myself for keeping up so far :) roll on next week when ill be freeeeeee! (not that im counting down the days or anything) but this time a week tomo. School will be out and ill be smiling like this:

Bahahahaha. this plus a christmas hat = MOI

So todays topic of conversation is Santa/Father Christmas/Saint Nicholas.... that big guy in red. you know the one! likes mince pies, has a belly on him. yeah... him!

Ahhh, i love the idea of Father Christmas, (also known as FC to us lazy typers!) I think its such a nice tradition to uphold and i think its very important for children to know the history of it, rather than just the modern day idea of "santa" and his bottle of coca cola (cos lets face it, they have the monopoly on the advertising brand with that one!) 

As a youngster, i was equally smitten with the big jolly beardyman... Every year I would write my Christmas list and me and my sister would send it up the chimney for him to persuse... we had a big old fireplace, so it totally worked!! Then on christmas eve, we would lay out a mince pie and a glass of brandy (none of that milk and cookies stuff, old FC runs a tough shift - he deserves a little alcoholic pick me up!!! haha)  And a few carrots for the Reindeer, so that he had a nice pit-stop as he flew around the world delivering all those presents :-)

I was always so excited in the morning (after the stocking excitement obvs!) to go and find the few tell-tale crumbs and a half bitten carrot as evidence of his presence.... i was convinced he was for real. In fact one year i got into collecting autographs and youd better believe i left my "autograph book" out for him to sign!!! He did (in suspiciously similar handwriting to the motherships) but still, i was sold. In my eyes, Father Christmas was a dude... no question about it!

As i got older i started to piece together the clues that pointed towards FC being more legend than reality. But i still liked to believe... Ill admit i did wake up one night and see my mum putting our stockings out. But i didnt say a peep... I wasnt stupid - i knew FC needed helpers, i mean come ON... the world is a big old place, he'd need some staff - right?! Anyways, I wasn't about to spoil the magic of christmas just cos id seen my mum doing her thing...!

So in a way, i was lucky to have a very idyllic christmas ideal. I didnt get a massive shock as to FC not being real, i didnt feel cheated or stupid cos my friends told me... i just grew up and realised the truth. But at no time did that make christmas less special. So im super glad of that.... :-)

When i got older and we moved back to England, Christmas wasnt quite the same... Id grown up and so the same effort wasnt considered necessary by my parents! We still did the whole stocking and tree and presents thing. But after my parents got divorced and we moved out of the family home, the mumatron didnt really like to do Christmas... i think it was hard for her to remember what it had been like. Anyways, then i got sick and so it wasnt as important to me! 

We tend not to really celebrate Xmas that much now.. which is a shame cos i genuinely do LOVE it! But we dont have a family home, so there isnt a base for everyone to flock to. My mum doesnt see the point of doing the whole decorating stuff, so we dont have a tree. We might get one in london cos that is where we plan to spend Xmas this year. But its not a big deal since its just the three of us....

I look forwards to the future, when i have a family of my own and i can bring back the fun and joy of Christmas. i know that i will get my festive cheer on BIGTIME when i have kids of my own :) I hope that when that time comes, i will be able to include the mumster and my sis too, if she likes... and we can be a proper family again. But till then, i will just be a little festive elf in my own christmas world! 

Cos lets face it... Christmas is great! theres nothing else like it and im pretty sure that without it, winter would be a DAMN miserable season :p So lets be grateful that we have something to break up the gloomy cold winter chill eh!?!?!

OH and ice-rinks.... im determined to get on an ice-rink this year. Cos theres nothing more Christmassy than wrapping up all warm in hats and scarfs and skating round an ice-rink!!! well, except maybe egg-nog, but Eew?! that stuff is just. plain. wrong. so i wont even go there....!! :-p