To protect the identities of the tiny humans in this story, their names have been changed to those of my favourite vegetables, since I sometimes actually do call them Broccoli or Brussel Sprout just to make them laugh. (They’re six; they think I’m hilarious.)
Act I: Late September (or It Seemed Like Such a Good Idea at the Time)
The two Grade One teachers and I are sitting in an empty classroom, scheduling reading groups, trying to figure out who to pair with whom, who is reading at similar levels and who is least likely to smack one of their classmates while learning about the intricacies of mat, sat, cat, rat and fat.
Me: Hey, for the Christmas concert this year, I was thinking we should put all the Grade Ones together and sing “Mele Kalikimaka.” I could play my ukulele. It would be adorable.
Mrs. L: We could do a little kazoo solo in the middle!
Mrs. C: That sounds great! I’ll get leis from the Dollar Store.
Act II: October, Getting Down to Work
Days fly by, calendar pages flip off at super speed. Meet the Creature Night runs into progress reports, Thanksgiving turns into Hallowe’en and the kids start their inexorable sugar-fuelled slide towards Christmas. We read, we write, we spell and every chance we get, we sing. Asparagus, who is in my reading group tells me that she is teaching her mom and her little sister to sing Mele Kalikimaka, and Brussel Sprout calls me the “ukelady.”
I love my job.
Act III: The Plot Thickens
By the end of November, we know all of the words to the song, we’ve mostly stopped being shouty at the beginning and there is at least a semblance of unison. We’ve also mastered the tricky bit at the end where they say, “very, very, merry merry Christmas,” which is the big finish.
Our thoughts turn to kazoos.
Mrs. C scours every Dollar Store in the Ottawa area but due to some unforeseen kazoo embargo, we can only come up with 12.
There are 38 children in our group.
Tough decisions have to be made. It is determined that whoever doesn’t have a kazoo for the solo, can hum along.
Predictably, there is a fair amount of heartbreak when the final kazoo line up is announced. Brussel Sprout gets weepy and Mrs. L. has to do some major league comforting. Fortunately, Mrs. L. is a Specialist at Comforting.
I spend a lot of time expounding on the theme “It Is As Important to Be a Good Hummer in Life, As It Is to Be Chosen for the Kazoo Orchestra,” but I’m not sure any of the kids really buy it.
Act IV: The Whole School Dress Rehearsal
It is the last week before Christmas holidays. Nerves are frayed, tempers are short and most of the grown ups in the school are running on little more than caffeine and cough drops.
It is hot and loud and even before we can start the rehearsal, someone knocks over the laser beam light thing that is projecting dancing green dots on the stage curtains. This wouldn’t be such a big problem if I hadn’t been standing right beside the laser beam light thing when it got knocked over, but sadly I am, and so I get zapped directly in the eyes.
I see dancing spots everywhere for the next hour or so and then I start to get an impressive headache and it is then that I discover that the tiny bottle of Advil I keep in my schoolbag is empty.
We rehearse the whole concert, one class after another. We practice being quiet in the hallway, we practice walking up the steps to the stage, we practice clapping politely.
By hour two of the rehearsal, all I can think about is going home and putting on my pyjamas. Possibly drinking wine.
By hour three of the rehearsal, I am starting to regret ever having learned to play the ukulele.
Somehow, though, we get through it. I spend a lot of time saying to the other teachers, “This is why we have dress rehearsals – to iron out the little bumps before the Big Day. It’ll be fine. You’ll see,” but this seems to have about as much effect as my Humming vs Getting to Play a Cool Kazoo speech.
Act V: The Performance
The gymnasium is packed. Every parent, grandparent, godparent, aunt, uncle, pre-school age sibling and kindly next door neighbour is in attendance. There is approximately $1.5 million worth of recording equipment. Benches have been placed at the front for people to come up and take photos when their special little Cauliflower or Green Bean is centre stage and people are already jockeying for position.
The Kindergarten classes are on right before us. This is a tough break because the Kindergarteners are doing a song with a lot of gestures and about half of them are holding stuffed toys or wearing Santa hats and it is hard to compete with that level of cute.
And then we’re up.
1-2-3-4…
Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say, on a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day…
They sing their hearts out.
We get a big clap and I look up over my music at our Grade One Mass Choir and Kazoo Orchestra and every one of them is beaming. Even the Hummers.
On the way back to their classroom, Asparagus says to me, “We were pretty good, weren’t we, Ms. Murphy?”
“You were fantastic,” I say.
And that’s why we’ll do it all again next year.
P.
P.S. Wishing you light and warmth during these longest Solstice nights. See you in 2019…