Ho Ho Ho

At this point, I am two weeks past it, but I’ve got to share the details of the library’s second biggest program (after Summer Reading Program), if only so that I remember. The program is an ornament workshop. It was mentioned on my first day of work as an upcoming thing that is a Big Deal. At the end of September, it was mentioned again as something I should get started on, a suggestion which I pretended to seriously consider and then promptly dismissed. Christmas? In the fall? Ten weeks before the program in question? I’m so sure.

I started to do a little planning in October, but it was November before I really started to get cracking on it. Which probably would have been fine except that what with my other job responsibilities, I wasn’t spending the amount of time I should have. It wasn’t until about two weeks before the big day that the enormity of the thing really hit me. The program is set up so that the kids have 5 or 6 ornaments to pick from. There should be a variety of skill levels, a variety of types of things (i.e., one Santa, one reindeer, etc.) and I felt there should be a variety of materials that the ornaments would be made of. I couldn’t repeat anything done in the last 4 or 5 years. And there needed to be about 75 of each type of ornament. People, that is 375 to 450 ornaments, each with at least one thing that needs to be cut, even if it’s just the ties to hang the ornament

What this ended up meaning was that the last two weeks of November were spent furiously cutting out felt triangles and counting beads and tracing gingerbread men onto cork, and on and on. I developed a callus on my finger where the scissor handle rested. I developed a constant burning sensation in my stomach. And I developed a sense that this was karmic payback for my deep-seated reluctance to help with ornaments as a child. I’ve never particularly liked Christmas decorations, and I was known to get sulky when forced to help out with that aspect of the Christmas production that my family goes through each year. Every time I remembered something I had left to cut, or realized that something I thought was going to be quick was going to take an hour, I pictured my mom rubbing her hands together and cackling.

In the end, it turned out fine. I had been planning six ornaments, but one got cut at the last minute, not that anyone knew, or would have cared if they did. I genuinely feel a bit ambivalent about this much of the library’s resources being spent on a program celebrating a religious holiday, even if we do just focus on the secular. (My predecessor would occasionally do angel ornaments, and while I respect most of her choices, I kind of think if you’re going to do that, you may as well do a baby Jesus.) But the program brings in tons of people who would never come to the library otherwise, and it’s clearly labeled as a Christmas event, so for this year, at least, I turned off my inner alarm bells and rolled with the Christmas cheer. Next year, maybe I’ll be organized enough to plan a winter celebration storytime that features all of the many winter celebrations. Above all else, next year, when my boss brings up the program in September, I promise not to laugh.