Door Decorations for Christmas

To celebrate Christmas, the Administration decided to have a door-decorating contest among each of the classrooms. Being an avid decorator, I knew that not only would we enter the contest, but there was no option other than winning. And so I told my students.

Me: We are having a door decorating contest for Christmas and we HAVE to win!

Students: (Groans...) Do we have to?

Me: YES! This is our chance to show everyone what we have and how talented you all are!

(Truly the best artists in the school all are in my class!)

Students: Alright, fine.

Me: So, what kind of theme do we want to do?

Student: How about Mario Gangster?

Me: Well...(stifling a laugh) it has to be BOTH Christmasy and appropriate.

Student: Ok...

We went on to discuss varying options and ended with not a single idea, but rather a story that would span four walls. I was impressed and thought that for sure, we would win.

The next day I reminded the students of our plan and began assigning each one to a certain part of the decorations.

Me: So I would like for us to start today. I have brought up all this colored paper from downstairs and we have all this additional stuff to decorate with.

Students: But Ms. S, it's not even Thanksgiving yet!

Me: Precisely! We will need all the time we can get!

So we began decorating. We had almost finished our door and subsequent walls the day the week after Thanksgiving, but I noticed that only one of the other Teachers had begun. I thought they should have started earlier.

The next day we finished up our decorations and noticed that another Teacher's wall looked similar to ours. I decided to take a walk down the hallway to get a better look. The Teacher invited me into her classroom where she showed me the rest of their ideas--they were the exact same as ours. I was shocked but managed to compose myself and saunter back to the classroom.

"Tear it all down!" I told the class. "We will need to start again. I need a fresh idea."

We brainstormed again, this time with only three days to go until judgement day. And the work continued yet again. We cut out snow flakes and hung them from the ceiling, we made a house and a Christmas tree under which we wrapped all of our books. We hung ornaments that each of the students had decorated. We made a sleigh, Santa, Rudolf, and elves packing up the gifts. And then we made the North Pole, strung lights and made welcome signs. It was quite the sight to behold.

As we feverishly worked those next days, the classroom down the hall bantered back and forth with us. "Don't worry," they shouted. "We'll share our pizza with you." I thought, "And we won't share ours with you, when WE win!"

And lo and behold, when finally the classes were judged, our (my) dreams came true and we were told that we had won! A pizza party for room 210--horray