Chapter Forty-One: Christmas Partying and Parting

Chapter 41 – Christmas Partying and Parting

I am not good at hosting parties, but as principal I feel it is my obligation to arrange a staff holiday party. I put up a food sign-up sheet and reserve the party room at my apartment complex. I buy every staff member a coffee mug and gift certificate from Books-a-Million. The question of alcohol always stymies me. I don’t drink and I worry if I sanction an event with alcohol and someone is hurt, I will be liable. But most of my team can’t fathom a party without alcohol. Compromise: I won’t supply it but they can bring it. They do.

Lynne, my business manager and counselor Rosie are the first to arrive. They set out the food then retire to a sofa and start drinking. They are perfectly happy to talk to only each other all evening.

Stephanie, the orientation leader, comes with Rufus, her new “boyfriend.” He works in the farm feed store up in Micanopy, but is in the Reserves and just got called up to report to Fort Stewart, GA. He is very chatty and personable. He and Stephanie station themselves at a small table by the window. Stephanie calls out to people to come join them and meet her boyfriend. Holding court, Stephanie wants to show him off to her coworkers. Her message: see how much better he is than that abusive, dirtbag man to whom I was married. . . well still am legally.

Buffy the elementary teacher arrives with her roommate. Her roommate attends University of Florida and wants to be a doctor. She talks and talks and talks about herself. Buffy keeps looking at the door, she seems eager for someone special to arrive or maybe she just wants to escape Ms. “enough about me.”

Ruth the cafeteria manager brings her husband. He appears far more educated and polished than Ruth. He is a manager at a local company. As we talk I wonder whether he knows that his wife says “nigger.”

Yvonne, who lives in my apartment complex, arrives with a tray of meat stuffed olives she just baked in her oven. She seems lost and like Buffy keeps looking at the door waiting for someone else to arrive.

Stone arrives with his wife. Unlike Stone, she is gracious and charming. They can only stay a short time, their church has an event tonight.

Jordan comes with fiancé Abby; Daphne brings husband Devon. These two couples have gotten together socially before. They sit together in a corner and pick up where they last left off.

Rusty arrives with his portable musical keyboard and sets the mood by playing Christmas carols.
Shasta brings her son Quinn. Quinn is thrilled by Rusty’s playing. Quinn pulls up a chair by the keyboard and joins Rusty in singing carols.

Midge arrives late, flustered and out of breath. She got lost. Lost?! She lives a block away!

Neeley arrives very late and very drunk. He proceeds to drink more. Buffy and Yvonne swarm around the young Adonis. What do they see in this scrawny, unkempt, unwashed guy?

For the most part, no one mixes, mingles or socializes. I work hard at moving around the room and talking to every guest, thinking all the while, I’d rather be at home. I am relieved when people start to leave. Yvonne takes drunken Neeley – to her place or his, not my business.

I am just not good at hosting parties.

Christmas is coming

Staff and students are starting to think about Christmas. RitaMae’s class writes essays on what they most want for Christmas. Nora writes that she wants her brother, Noah, to get out of his program and for her whole family to live together again. Twelve-year-old Nicholas writes that he is too old for Christmas. His mother got $125 from his stepfather to buy toys for his three stepbrothers. Nicholas and his mother went shopping together. It’s okay though, he writes again, I’m too old for Christmas.

The elementary students want to sing Christmas carols for the whole school. They don’t really know the words, so Midge helps them practice. We don’t have an auditorium so they decide to do it on the ball field. They sing while the older students walk to class. The elementary students all huddle on and around the pitcher’s mound and serenade the middle schoolers with jingle bells and Rudolph. The middle schoolers look befuddled and confused, a few smile tentatively but no one pokes fun or makes a rude comment. Although the children begin singing hesitantly, their confidence grows and so too does their volume and their pride.

My first Florida Christmas and the scenes are surreal. This morning when I was running I noticed more houses with elaborate holiday decorations than I remember from the northeast. Maybe in this land without snow, it is more important to make it look “a lot like Christmas.” It is disconcerting to see Santas and reindeer next to green grass and flowers in a world that looks like June. Now I see children in shorts and t-shirts squinting in the bright sun under a cloudless sky, standing on a grassy field surrounded by green leafy trees, singing about Dasher and Dancer as classes file silently by.

Stone as Santa Claus? Not since the drunk played St. Nick in Miracle on 34th Street do I worry, has there been a more inappropriate role assignment. But Stone has the body for it and agrees to do it. I rent the costume, and buy and wrap books for all the elementary students. Santa/Stone comes in Midge’s classroom ho-ho-ho-ing. Even the most cynical children are suddenly cuss-less. Several run to hug him. Stone passes out the gifts. I didn’t put name tags on them, but Stone acts as if there is only one right package for each child. The students don’t seem to recognize Stone and they are overjoyed with the presents. They all want to hug him before he leaves. Stone does the same thing in Buffy’s elementary classroom.

Later he comes in my office to change back into his clothes. Stone the curmudgeon, Stone the cynic, Stone who has made jokes and formal requisitions for a cattle prod, Stone the “I hate all of you and you’re all goin’ to hell”, this Stone has tears in his eyes. He forgot there was any innocence left in our students. He tells me more than once, “They were hugging me.”

On the last day of school before Christmas break, many teachers bring gifts and cards for their students; a few students come with gifts and cards for staff. Midge is upset that Trey is absent. She bought the budding writer a hard covered journal for his stories. Keith has a card for Jana. More surprisingly, DerMarr has a hug for her. Marcus, his hair tightly braided, brings a gift to RitaMae. Nora has a gift for RitaMae as well, and a big hug. Darius has a card for Rusty. Ruth, the cafeteria manager, uses her own money to buy candy canes and toys. She puts a candy cane and a number in every lunch bag and has a drawing. Ruth awards the special presents, stuffed animals and toys, to students holding winning tickets. In the parking lot at dismissal, the lucky recipients of Ruth’s gifts run to show me their prizes. I wonder whether these will be the only Christmas presents they receive. All of Daphne’s students hug her; a few look like they are going to cry. The busses start to depart, Eli, the football player I never saw play football, sticks his head out the window and shouts “Merry Christmas Mrs. Smee!”

After the busses leave, Trey’s mother comes in my office. She asks me to sign a card for Trey who will be spending Christmas in JDC (juvenile detention center). Yesterday Trey’s aunt came over to take Trey and his two younger siblings shopping. Trey was misbehaving and his mother decided she would not permit him to go along. His aunt put the two other children in the back seat and prepared to drive away. Trey was upset that he was excluded from this outing. He grabbed a loose brick and threw it at the rear window of the car. It smashed the window just above his baby brother’s head. Fortunately the brick did not go through the window and no one was hurt. But Mom decided to call the police. Mom was convinced that the brick would have killed the baby if it had broken through the glass. The police agreed and arrested Trey. They told Mom he is going to be in jail for a long time.

Mom says she needs my advice on something: What should she do with all the toys she bought for Trey? Her coworkers at Wal-Mart are telling her to return them, get her money back and buy more presents for her two other children - her good children. But Mom is unsure. Fighting my own anger, frustration and sadness, I tell her to save Trey’s gifts and give them to him when he is released. Mom nods her head. Trey is nine years old. Merry Christmas Trey.