What Teaching in December is REALLY Like

Teaching in December is like being the host of a classroom party full of 6-year-olds who do not like your cupcakes. You’ve got 30 minutes to make a craft, play games, feed them, and clean up. You are sweaty, drained, and longing for the light at the end of the tunnel.

Luckily, a birthday party usually lasts for one day max, two if there’s a sleepover. Unluckily, teaching in December feels like that for 2-3 weeks.

You’re fresh off of Thanksgiving break, recovering from your tryptophan and the realization you did not accomplish most of what you promised yourself you would. Your students never mentally check back in after their extended Thanksgiving vacation– the anticipation of winter break means every day from here on out is a Friday and they will treat it as such. You’ve also got emails from administration reminding you to stay focused, remember your why, and don’t forget to prep for mid-terms.

Here’s a breakdown of the chaos spiral that is teaching in December.

1. The Flurry of Spirit Days

Gone are the days when just one ugly Christmas sweater will do. You now need to dedicate a substantial portion of your closet to the red, green, striped, and light-up clothing items you’ll need for the 20 days before winter break.

2. The Adjusted Schedules

When working on lesson plans for the next few weeks, allow for interruptions frequently. If it is not a concert, it’s a class party. Class is shortened 10 minutes? Every student just heard “free day!”

3. The Class Parties

Every custodian’s least favorite day, complete with glitter, half-eaten cookies, and full cups of punch tossed right into that classroom trashcan. Remember, when there is a class party at the end of the day, your teaching for the day will sound to your students like the adults talking in Peanuts.

4. The Gift Exchanges

Every year you tell yourself you’ll opt out, and every year you find yourself making a late night run to Target because your gift is due tomorrow. Inevitably, your Secret Santa gives you a regifted mug to add to the workroom stash for someone to microwave soup in.

5. The Festive Carry-Ins

Just prepare yourself to make a hot dish a time or two, because we’ve got the 12 Days of Christmas casseroles. You’re going to need to stock up on cream of chicken soup and stretchy pants.

6. The Weather Whiplash Wardrobe

You walk into school wearing your parka that is more like a sleeping bag with holes, heavy snow boots, and thick gloves. Meanwhile, your students come to school in basketball shorts and a sweatshirt and gaslight you for saying it is cold.

7. The Academic Expectations

You’re supposed to teach the actual curriculum and meet the standards between the sugar cookie exchange and the “name that holiday song” on the announcements. Admin emails gently remind you that “learning must continue.” You gently remind yourself that teaching passive verb voice while dressed like Cindy Lou Who definitely earned you a sugar cookie at lunch.

8. The Door Decorating Contests

You have no choice but to participate because when yours is the only bare door, you look like The Grinch. Guard your heart, teachers. You may go into this thinking, “I’ll just put a little bulletin board paper up and call it a day.” Next thing you know, you’re printing off photos of the judge’s grandkids and putting them inside the windows of The Polar Express, and when the judges don’t pick you because they feel that was emotional bribery (rather than thoughtful and endearing) you’ve got to be cool.

9. The Frosty Emotional Forecast

One minute your student is crying because their paper snowflake ripped, and the next they are hugging you and sad to leave you over break. The secondary students do not want to be there and will ask you if it is movie day every day until break. Prepare yourself to deal with an army of unhappy teenagers when you ask them to do actual work. Maybe hand them a candy cane if they finish without rolling their eyes.

10. The Countdown to Break

Countdowns are something I started early in my teaching career and then learned the hard way never to do again. If there is a countdown on my board, that’s just another reminder for my students to treat every day like we are all on a very unorganized vacation together when we’re actually in my classroom, trying to identify the irony in “The Gift of the Magi”.

This is why December is a sweaty month. We’re covered in holiday spirit and running to the finish line.

Teachers, it’s time to reapply that deodorant at lunch time because we’re about to get launched into a blizzard of spirit days, concerts, and countdowns, and our perspiration may not be peppermint.