Memo to the Woodland Middle School teachers

Dear Woodland Middle School teachers,

I got to meet many of you last night. You seem nice enough and appear to be genuinely interested in spending your time around a bunch of 6th graders. Which is either valiant or crazy. I'm not sure which quite yet.

However, in the course of walking us through your plans for the year, I determined that many of you have some challenges with part of the English language. More specifically, many of you stumbled over a word. Interestingly enough, it was the same word you all tripped over. It was the "C" word.

Christmas.

As in "in the first half of the year we will study blah, blah, blah. Then after Chr....(large cough and slight gagging)...errr...then after Winter Break we will study the other blah, blah, blah."

They visibly had to work hard not to say the "C" word.

It's OK. You can say the "C" word.. We all know what you mean when you say "Winter Break" anyway.  We live in Tennessee. We still celebrate Christmas.

You don't have to do a rundown on the Luke 2 story when you say the "C" word, just use it as a demarcation of time in the school year. Know that you have a lot on your plate what with your spending time with my kids and a zillion other jacked up junior highers, just wanted you know that no worries over the "C" word here.

Thanks, and Merry err...well you know.