The Class 09 Christmas mircale.

I heaved against the warped, peeling gray door of the classroom, arms loaded with Christmas goodies sent from saints in America, prepared for the last class of the term, and nearly dropped everything.

The normally drab classroom was decorated with a few odd balloons and the bowed chalkboard was covered with pictures of Christmas trees and snowmen. The students were all wearing identical Santa hats, throwing confetti, and shouting Christmas greetings. A bewildered looking teddy bear the size of an eight year old child was perched on the teacher's desk next to some hand made cards. I blinked. Took a minute to catch my breath while the confetti settled to the floor. 

Could this really be the class that at the beginning of the term had confounded me to the point of dispair when their admittedly favorite things to do were sleep and drink beer?

Could these stary eyed, remarkably attentive students really be the same students who cleaned their friends ears during class and worked harder at looking bored than any other single activity? 

As I stood at the front of class and slipped an extra Santa hat that lay awaiting my arrival from the desk onto my head, the typical Christmas words, hope, joy, peace, flashed through my mind and quickly away. For perhaps the first Christmas ever another word came to mind and hovered stuck there, entering forever into my seasonal vocabulary:

Redemption. 


The Angels heralded it. The Shepherds came to see it. Herod killed because of it. The Wise Men followed a star to it. A baby in a feeding trough... and redemption became real. 

So we spent the next nearly two hours, talking about Christmas symbols, making Christmas ornaments, singing Christmas songs, acting out the nativity story, taking pictures and spraying fake snow everywhere. When I handed out their gifts, stockings filled with candies and cards written to them specifically, there was a pause... I realized from the looks of wonder and gratitude on their faces, not to mention the momentary silence, that most of them had never received Christmas gifts before.

When we ran out of things to do, I dismissed them. But not before I thanked them for celebrating with me. The chours' of 'we love you teacher' 'thank you teacher' that sounded uncannily like a heavenly host saying 'Glory to Him in the highest...'

A difficult semester, a history of failure and loss, a class that had given up, a people that had almost stopped waiting, a Christmas miracle, a baby in a feeding trough, a class full of merriement and attention, a night of wonder, a semester, a world, redeemed.

Merry Christmas.