by Suzy Kline
Miss Mackle clapped her hands. “I love it when you find connections between the different holidays!”
Ida clapped her hands, too, then continued. “Kwanzaa is like Christmas because we exchange presents on the seventh day. Our gifts are homemade or handed down from our families.”
“However, unlike Christmas and Hanukkah,” Mrs. Burrell explained, “Kwanzaa isn’t a religious holiday. Each family celebrates Kwanzaa in its own way, but all families recognize the seven principles of Kwanzaa, called Nguzo Saba.”
“Please say those words again,” ZuZu asked.
Ida and her mother repeated them slowly so we could learn them. “En-GOO-zoh SAH-bah.”
“En-GOO-zoh SAH-bah,” we all chanted.
“Nguzo Saba.” Ida unrolled a chart with the seven principles printed neatly on it: Unity:
working together
Self-determination:
speaking for ourselves
Cooperative work:
solving our problems
Cooperative economics:
building our businesses
Purpose:
remembering traditions and values
Creativity:
improving our communities
Faith:
believing in our people, our parents, our
teachers, our struggle for equality
Next Ida took out two pies from the basket.
“On the sixth night of Kwanzaa, we have a big feast called karamu (kah-RAH-moo). Some of the things we eat are collard greens, catfish, black-eyed peas, corn, fruit, and sweet potato pie! We brought a sample for you!”
“Ooooh,” we said, watching Mrs. Burrell serve the pie on paper plates.
“Mmm!” I said swallowing my first sweet bite. “This is goooooood.”
“Can we have seconds?” Sid asked.
“I’m sorry, there isn’t enough,” Mrs. Burrell replied. “But we do have a special activity. Making kufis.”
“What are kufis, Ida?” ZuZu asked.
“African hats,” Ida answered. “First you have to measure the circumference of your head.”
Ida’s mother smiled at her when she said the “c” word correctly.
“We’ll give everyone three strips of poster paper so you can make a skull cap hat,” Ida said.
“Skull cap!” Sid repeated. “Neat-o!”
As soon as Ida gave everyone a tape measure from one of the plastic tubs in our math corner, we compared head sizes. Mary went first.
“Mine’s twenty-one inches.”
“Mine’s fifty-eight inches!” Sid bragged. “I have the biggest head in the class.”
ZuZu put down his tape. “Sidney, that couldn’t be. Your head isn’t five feet around.”
“T-rex might have one that big, but not you,” Harry piped in. That private talk with the teacher must have helped some. Not only was Harry making a hat, he was thinking about horrible things again, like dinosaurs.
“Look,” Sid replied. “A brain the size of mine needs lots of room.”
Miss Mackle smiled as she went over to Sid’s desk. “I think you’re using the metric side of your tape, Sidney. You’re right though, your head does measure fifty-eight. Fifty-eight centimeters.”
Sid flipped the tape over and remeasured. “Okay, it’s twenty-three inches. Same thing. My head still is the biggest in the class.”
Ida got us back on track. “Make your strips a little longer than your head size so the ends overlap when you staple them. One goes around your forehead. The other two crisscross on top and attach to it. You can draw shapes on the strips with Magic Markers. After that, you can line the inside of your crown with any color of crepe paper you want.”
“I’m using black,” Mary said.
“I’m using red,” Sid said.
“I’m using green,” Song Lee said.
When we finished our kufi hats, we put them on and sat proudly together for a picture. I thought Mary’s head looked bigger than Sidney’s though. It probably was her pigtails.
Crash!
Wednesday Miss Mackle passed out permission slips that we had to take home and get signed by our parents.
“Yahoo! A field trip in December!” Dexter sang out. Then he drummed his fingers on a pretend guitar.
ZuZu read every word on the permission slip. “We’re going to Shady Pines?” he asked. “Where is that?”
“Harry,” Miss Mackle said. “Would you like to explain the activity?”
“Sure,” Harry said. “We’re going to visit my great-grampa Sam Spooger. He—” Harry paused for a moment—“moved to Shady Pines. That’s a nursing home four blocks from our school.”
Miss Mackle walked over and put her hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Harry and I thought a trip to Shady Pines would be a great idea. We could visit the elderly people who live there and share some of our holiday activities.”
So that’s what put Harry in a daze! His great-grandfather wasn’t living with him anymore. I knew he and Harry were buddies. He told him about Gremlins and World War II fighter planes. He was a hero during the war and saved lives. I knew he and Harry played poker a lot at home.
“We could share our favorite stories and poems. That’s what we do at our house for Kwanzaa,” Ida replied.
“I’ll ask Mom if we can play the dreidel game,” Mary suggested. “We always play that at Hanukkah.”
“I could bring my Elvis ‘Christmas Together’ CD, and we could sing ‘Here Comes Santa Claus,’” Dexter added.
“Wonderful!” Miss Mackle exclaimed. “So get your permission slip signed and bring it back this week. We’re going Monday!”
The next morning we were all shivering in the playground waiting for the school bell to ring. It was sleeting again and really cold.
Suddenly a car skidded across the road, jumped over a curb, and crashed into the tall fir tree in front of Southeast School.
Bam!
Everyone screamed.
Seconds later, Mr. Cardini, the school principal, came running out of the building and ordered everyone inside. As we passed by the fence, we could see the old fir tree was slumped over.
I was really thankful the driver got out of the car okay. He looked fine. His car didn’t though. It had a smashed front fender. Mrs. Funderburke, the cafeteria lady, rushed outside. “I called nine-one-one,” she yelled. “Come downstairs for coffee and cookies and get warm.”
“I’m glad everyone’s safe!” Miss Mackle said as we rushed into Room 3B.
“What a cool smash up!” Sid said. “Bam! Wham! Crash!”
“That’s a terrible thing to say, Sidney,” ZuZu snapped.
“It sure is!” Mary agreed. I had a feeling she and ZuZu were going to be great friends.
Harry was pressing his nose against the window. Since we were on the second floor, we could see everything. Even the skid marks across the road.
Song Lee reached for a Kleenex. “Our big old tree doesn’t stand tall anymore,” she said sadly. “It slumps.”
Miss Mackle was the only one who had something nice to say. “It does slump, but there still is something to appreciate about that old tree.”
Song Lee nodded.
Harry didn’t look sad, just thoughtful. “That’s like my great-grampa. He can’t stand tall either. He has to use a wheelchair now.”
“Yes,” the teacher agreed. “And there’s still a lot to appreciate about your great-grampa, huh?”
“Yeah,” Harry agreed. “There sure is!”
Miss Mackle put her hand over her heart as she stared at Harry.
Hanukkah Fun at Shady Pines
Monday morning, we all walked four blocks up the hill to Shady Pines. Harry and I were partners. It was fun to wear our boots and crunch in the snow.
“It looks like a haunted house,” Sid said.
When Harry held up a fist and muttered, “Knock it off, Sid the Squid,” I smiled. He was starting to be his old self again.
When we walked into the nursing home, it se
emed like we were in someone’s living room. There were couches and chairs, and a vase of flowers on a coffee table. A lady at the desk greeted us.
“Good morning, boys and girls. Welcome to Shady Pines. I’m Mrs. Pepper, the administrator.”
“Look! They’ve got a Christmas tree!” Ida exclaimed.
Harry pointed to the dryboard next to it. There were lots of words written in different colors. “See this schedule for December? It tells about all the things going on at Shady Pines. Grampa likes the music programs best because he gets lots of refreshments. He still loves to eat!”
Mrs. Pepper laughed. “Please follow me to the activity room.”
When we got there it was full of elderly people sitting in wheelchairs. “Hi Grampa!” Harry called as he rushed over to him.
Harry kneeled down by his wheelchair and gave him a big hug. “This is my grampa,” he said proudly.
“H ... h ... hi,” Harry’s grampa said.
“He stutters now, after his stroke,” Harry said matter-of-factly. “This is his roommate Elmer. He wears a bike helmet because he gets seizures sometimes and has to protect his head when he falls.”
Mrs. Pepper beamed. “Harry has gotten to know our clients quite well in the past two weeks. He’s a regular visitor!”
Mary’s mom, Mrs. Berg, patted Harry on the back. She was one of our chaperones.
“Take off your hats and coats, boys and girls,” Mrs. Pepper said. “And help yourself to some cocoa and cookies at the refreshment table.”
“Thank you!” we said. I took a sugar cookie with rainbow sprinkles.
A lot of the older people spilled cocoa when they drank, but it didn’t matter because they were wearing long white bibs.
While people were snacking, Mary’s mother announced, “We would like to do an activity with you that we do during Hanukkah. That’s a Jewish holiday we usually celebrate in December.”
“I know about Hanukkah,” a lady said. She was wearing a blonde wig that didn’t sit on her head quite right. “I’m Jewish. It’s when we celebrate the miracle of the oil lasting eight days in the temple.”
“I’m Jewish, too,” said a man wearing a blue bow tie. “But my favorite part of Hanukkah is eating fried foods like potato pancakes to remind us of the oil miracle.”
“Yes!”. Mrs. Berg replied. “The latkes! Mmmmm!
“Our activity is playing the dreidel game. There are four sides to a dreidel,” she explained as she handed some to Mary, Ida, and Song Lee to pass out. “Each side has a different Hebrew letter. Together they stand for ‘A Great Miracle Happened There.’ I’ll draw them on this dryboard.
“We learned a song that explains the rules. Ready, boys and girls, to sing?” Mrs. Berg asked.
All of us stopped eating, and sang:“Oh, dreidel, dreidel, dreidel,
I made it out of clay,
And when my dreidel’s ready,
Oh, dreidel I will play.
I’ll take my little dreidel
And give it a good strong spin.
I hope it lands on gimmel
For then I’m sure to win.
If I spin hay, I take half,
But none if I spin nun.
I get the pot with gimmel,
With shin I must pay one.”
Few of the elderly could clap for us, but I could tell by their shiny eyes they enjoyed it. Mary gave each of us four gold-wrapped chocolate coins from her basket.
“This is gelt,” she said. “What you put in the pot when you play dreidel.”
“Tha-that’s like po-po-po-poker,” Harry’s grampa said.
“Yes!” Mary replied.
Harry beamed. “We know how to play that, huh Grampa!”
“We su-su-sure d-d-do.”
Mrs. Berg held up a hand. “Okay! The students will partner up with people here at Shady Pines. They’ve been practicing in class, so they know how to play. There’s just one more rule. Share your chocolate winnings!”
Harry and I played with his grampa and Elmer at the end of one long table. We each put one piece of gelt in the pot. I spun the dreidel first. “Nun,” I groaned.
Elmer adjusted his bike helmet, then spun next. He got nun also.
Harry spun the top for his grampa. “Shin,” he said. “You have to put one in.” Harry put a candy in the pot for his grampa and then took a turn. He spun the dreidel real hard.
“Gimmel! Yahoo! I take all the candies.”
“Sh-sh-sh ...” his grampa said.
“Yeah, I know, Grampa,” Harry replied. “I have to share the chocolate winnings!”
After we unwrapped the chocolate and popped some in our mouths, Harry flashed a toothy smile at me and his grampa. It didn’t gross me out that his teeth had chocolate on them. It was great to see my buddy smiling again.
After we read stories and poems to the elderly, we danced and sang to Elvis’s Christmas music:Here comes Santa Claus
Here comes Santa Claus
Right down Santa Claus Lane ...
When it was time to leave Shady Pines, we all said good-bye to our dreidel partners. Harry gave his grampa a big hug. Then he slapped him five.
On our way downhill back to school, I heard Sidney say, “That was no haunted house. Man, that was a fun house!”
Flying High for Korean New Year’s
Tuesday morning when we walked into class, we noticed Song Lee’s mom, Mrs. Park, hanging up Korean clothes in front of the blackboard. She also had placed a kite and a board game on the chalk tray.
After the bell rang, Miss Mackle beamed. “Today Mrs. Park is here to help us learn about the Korean New Year. Song Lee, do you want to help her?”
Song Lee hurried up to the front of the room and hid behind her mother. We didn’t see much of her, just her shoes and left ear.
Mrs. Park didn’t force Song Lee to talk. Miss Mackle didn’t either. Mrs. Park did most of the talking. “I bring board game called yut (yoot). Family play game on Korean New Year. It is holiday gift from us to you.”
We clapped and cheered as she held up four wooden sticks and a board. “Each stick has four side. Three curve, one flat. You toss stick in air, and hope it land on flat side. When stick land on flat side, you move token on board.”
“Dibs on playing with Song Lee!” Harry said jumping out of his seat.
Miss Mackle motioned for Harry to sit down. “Later, Harry. Let’s find out more about the Korean New Year.”
“Well,” Mrs. Park said reaching for the outfit on the hanger. “Children get dressed up in hanbok.” We all stared at the rainbow-colored suit made out of silk with a short jacket. “I put on Song Lee now.”
You could hear a pin drop as we watched Song Lee step into the beautiful costume.
Harry was half off his desk.
“On Korean New Year, we honor ancestor. Children visit old family and bow to show respect,” Mrs. Park said. “Girl bow on one knee. Song Lee, please show class.”
We watched Song Lee step in front of her mother, bow and kneel on one knee.
“Boy bow on both knee,” Mrs. Park explained.
Harry and I immediately tried bowing to each other on both knees. Mary and Ida bowed to each other on one knee.
“After children bow, old relative give gift.”
“The next time I visit Grampa, I’m bowing to him,” Harry said.
Miss Mackle put her hand over her heart.
“We also fly kite on New Year,” Mrs. Park continued. “I bring one.” We all looked at the white kite Song Lee’s mother unfolded. It had a hole right in the middle and streaks of red, blue, and green on it. “It is shield kite,” she said.
Song Lee peeked at us through the hole. When we saw her eyeball, we all laughed.
At activity time, we took turns playing yut and eating rice cakes that Mrs. Park had steamed in beef broth.
Then Miss Mackle said we could take Song Lee’s shield kite out to the playground. Boy, were we all flying high that sunny, windy day!
Secret Santas
The last week of school in December we did activities about Christmas. I didn’t know lots of Lebanese people celebrated Christmas, but they do. ZuZu’s mother brought in a buche de Noel. It was a Christmas log cake. The chocolate icing was like the bark of a tree, and the powdered sugar was the snow. It was delicious!
We also made wreaths out of pine-cones, decorated a class tree, and made up our own lyrics to songs like “Jingle Bells.”
Holidays! Holidays!
They’re for me and you!
Christmas, Kwanzaa,
Three Kings’ Day,
and Ha-nuk-kah too-oo!
But my favorite Christmas activity was the last one we did. Secret Santas. Miss Mackle brought out her glass jar that always sits on her desk. It had pieces of folded paper inside. Each paper had one class name written on it. “I want you to pick a name from this jar so you can be the Secret Santa for that person,” she said.
“Instead of buying a gift, though,” the teacher continued, “I want you to choose a white elephant from your house, wrap it up, and give it to that person.”
ZuZu was the first to ask. “What’s a white elephant, Miss Mackle?”
“Anything used that is still good,” the teacher explained. “Like a puzzle with all the pieces. Or a toy that isn’t broken but that maybe you don’t play with anymore. A book you’ve read that you are willing to part with. White elephants are things like that.”
“I get it!” Sid exclaimed. “I think I’ll give my family white elephants this year too. I’ve got lots of them in my room.”
