Week 12 Storytelling: Guilty Secret Santa

I have an updated version of this story on my website. Check it out here!

It was late November and all of the kids were returning to school after a nice Thanksgiving break.  This was an especially exciting time in Miss Jay’s 5^th grade class because the first day back from Thanksgiving break meant decorating for Christmas.  The kids would decorate the Christmas tree with handmade ornaments.  They would each hang stockings about their cubbies.  Students would make paper snowflakes and hang them around the room.  Within a couple hours, Miss Jay’s class was definitely flowing with the Christmas spirit.

Not only was the day spent decorating, but also Miss Jay would have each student draw a name out of a bowl.  Each student was then responsible for getting a gift for the person whose name was on the tiny slip of paper.  This was Miss Jay’s favorite Christmas activity, Secret Santa. 

Week after week, more gifts would pile under the tree.  The children’s’ excitement grew more and more.  It was finally the last week of school before Christmas break.  On Friday, everyone would be able to open their gifts and find out who their Secret Santa was.  Two days before the giant reveal, Miss Jay walked into her classroom and was shocked.  Her room was completely destroyed.  Snowflakes were ripped, stockings were torn down, and even some of the ornaments were broken.  It was a disaster.

The children started to funnel in.  They saw the giant mess and one very angry Miss Jay.  They were stunned.

“WHO DID THIS?” exclaimed Miss Jay.

There was no response.  Miss Jay asked again, “someone better tell me right now who destroyed my room!”

And again, there was no response. “Fine,” said Miss Jay. “If no one will fess up, you will all be punished and Secret Santa will be cancelled.”

A huge sigh fell over the entire room.  The kids were so upset because this was something they were really looking forward to.  But, there was one student named Jeremy.  Jeremy was loved by all and was even seen as a leader by most of the other students.  Jeremy knew what happened but he did not want to speak out in front of the entire class.  He also didn’t want to speak to Miss Jay when she was so furious.

The day was finally over and students were making their way out to the carpool line.  Jeremy approached Miss Jay and said, “I know what happened to your room, Miss Jay.  I didn’t want to say it earlier because I didn’t want to embarrass the person who did it.”

Miss Jay replied, “So what happened then?”

 “I heard Kaitlyn go up Anthony and tell him she drew his name for Secret Santa but wasn’t going to get him anything because she thought he was weird.  I could tell he was really sad by this.  Then I got here really early this morning to go get help with my math homework and I saw Anthony destroying the room.  I called his name to talk to him but then he ran away.  He shouldn’t have done that but I feel really bad for him because Kaitlyn was so mean,” Jeremy continued.

“Thank you for your honesty Jeremy.  I will fix this and talk to Kaitlyn,” Miss Jay responded.

Friday came around and Miss Jay had decided to continue with the Secret Santa.  She talked to Kaitlyn separately and told her it was not very nice of her to say those things to Anthony.  It turned out that she actually just had a crush on him!  So she agreed to get him a present.  Everyone opened their presents and found out who had drawn their name.  It was such a happy time for everyone.

 "Secret Santa" (Pixabay)

Authors Note:

I wrote this story based off "The Guilty Dogs" from Twenty Jataka Tales.  In the original story, all of the city dogs were blamed for something the palace dogs did.  They city dogs were sentenced to die.  One brave dog made his way to the king to question him on his punishment.  He was very charming and ended up showing the king that it was not the city dogs that committed the bad deed.  My story was definitely much different because I really just wanted to focus in on the theme of an entire group getting punished for the actions of the few.  I also definitely have Christmas fever so I wanted to throw a Christmas theme in there. :)

Bibliography:

"The Guilty Dogs" from Twenty Jataka Tales by Noor Inayat Khan  Link.