Ep 161: Secret Santa Gone Wrong, Awful Staff Parties & Christmas In School!

0:00 Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Teach the Rabbit. My name is Dylan. My name's. Hayden And you're right, it's Wednesday. It's the last four week before the end of the term. And it's not just any term, Hayden it's Christmas term. It's on the way. How exciting. It's the best term of all, wouldn't you say? I was, I think it's number one easily if I had to rank my 6 terms. Although it's really exhausting because it's quite often the longest, isn't it? There is just something magic about primary schools, especially at this time of the year course. There is Christmas is magical fortune. It's all for kids, isn't it? So if you work it at a place where everyone you're surrounded by is kid, it's like it's gonna be the most magical time. This is so true. I found because I'm 32 now, I have to think about that. I am 32 now and obviously my son Rory is 2 years old so my whole 20s there was no baby in the family so I'm the oldest of the siblings and since Roy's been born we've had Mason as well my sister's child so there's a couple of them now. But in my all of our 20s it was just adults for Christmas. And I don't know about you but like personally Christmas was just fine.

1:03 Like when there was no actual children involved it it just was not the same. It's, it's because when you're young, it's still magical to you, even if, even if that point where like, you know how it's going, you know how it works. You know who's got you the presents really, you know, we know what's going on. It's still magical because you still really want these toys and gifts and things and you want to spend all day playing with it. And you haven't got the crushing reality of, of working in the capitalist world. You know, on your shoulders, you can just enjoy Christmas. Whereas like when you're all, yeah, like you said, because I'm exactly the same. We had a huge, probably like a decade of just not. There were just no kids and there weren't any children. My siblings and stuff. So like, you know, even when my youngest, my youngest sister is 6 years younger than me, Yeah. So even when I was like 2223, she was still like she was still a child, you know, it was still at that point. I know getting older.

1:48 Yeah, it wasn't. But. But there is something special about the little kids and especially with our little ones. Now, again, this is Rory's third Christmas. First Christmas he was two months old. Second Christmas, he just turned 1. I didn't really get what was going on, but now it's like, see the pretty lights, see the elf, ho ho ho father. He's like so into it and it's so good. Yeah, we, I've literally said you didn't. I like last week that Christmas for the first time in ages, like I'm actually like excited, like really excited for it. And I felt it feels really good and I feel really festive and stuff. And I was like, before I was like, oh, maybe I'm just a Scrooge. I'm like, you know, but when I'm 28 and I'm just not remotely excited for Christmas, there's no children around. I was, I was like, oh, am I just old and boring? Is that all it is? And now actually I'm like, no, I just you just the whole point of Christmas is it's, it's magical and fun with kids.

2:32 Yeah, and I think actually circling background to our time in school in our whole of our 20s, that did keep it alive though, didn't it? Like I really loved that build up. And although you always ended school on like, you know, the the 18th, whatever it might be, and it felt like the end early. And it was weird then because you just said Christmas and it was nice get together, get together your family and stuff. But there were still no children around that lead up that that last two or three weeks of time. I think December as a whole in primary school is such a nice place to be. And I I definitely missed that this year. But it's nice that instead of that, I've had my own son get to that age where he's starting to really appreciate it. So yeah, I've definitely felt that kind of appreciation of Christmas a lot more. I think people listening to this again, they'll be exhausted at this point. I it is real, the tiredness at the end of end of this time. So we're going to talk about all things Christmas in this episode, but I just wanted to big shout out to anyone who works in the school.

3:23 Thank you because you're the ones who make it special for the kids as well. At the end of the day, they're excited, but you facilitate that as well. Well, thinking back then to our year, you know, we've spent ten years in a school, 10 Christmases we would have done, you know, put on for the kids over different ages as well, because we taught in year 4, year five, year 6 between us mostly. Can you think of any like special moments or certain things you did with the kids where you think that would that that is what like you made them grin, made them smile like when they came in that you did something in the classroom that was a bit out of the ordinary. Can you think of anything? I it's like for me it was, it was just leaning into it and letting yourself lean into it and enjoy it because it can be quite, you can have some trepidation sometimes I think as a teacher to go off script or off piste or off the norm because a huge problem people always talk about in this period is like behaviour because structures might be slightly loosened, etcetera.

4:09 But I always just thought I just lean into it. No, we'd play songs a lot more frequently. Yeah. The kids would come in the morning, there'd be a song play and they'd sing along. I don't get like, it was amazing. It's time. Yeah, Yeah. We'd stop lessons a bit early and do something related to Christmas instead. We would, you know, do a lot of arts and crafts. Do. You do it in your room as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you as a teacher quite often put the effort into just like, hang tinsel from the Yeah. So tinsel, I always had tinsel across, like the smart white board. Yeah, decorations around and the kids made me anything. The rule was it went up in the classroom, some sort of Christmas tree on top of my projector. I had like a little snowman hanging off the wall. And one thing I did do which worked so nicely is I bought a fake tree. So I kept it in my cupboard for the whole time. In December it came out and for the whole of December I used to not do house points anymore.

4:53 But I used to say to the children, OK, where I'd give out a house point or a team point, I'd say here's a bauble. So I'd have a big bag of baubles. And the kids like their, their prize would be they can put a bauble on the tree. So by the end of the IT was, but it was so nice. And I always remember one girl because I brought in my own decorations from home, my old ones, and they're all silver. Like there was this old, old big silver set we weren't using anymore. And one girl came in and saw it and went, Mr. Price, you've got her up your decorations game. And I went, sorry, it's just my, this is my spare one, sorry. And she was like, can I bring some in? I was like, yeah, of course she can. The next day she brought in the biggest bag of decorations you've ever seen, all different colours, all different bubbles. And she was like, hey, you got in. And I was like, is it?

5:36 Can we use this like, yeah, spell I brought in for you? I asked my dad. And then they brought it in this huge thing. The tree was so colourful. The kids absolutely loved it. And then again, that sparked something where I said to the children, you can all bring in one decoration and we'll put it on the tree and they bring in something from home. Obviously sometimes it's really special to them. Sometimes just a random one. Some kids didn't have 1 and I just said, should we make something? We made a little aside, but they could put their own thing on the tree then. And it just, it's little things. I guess someone might say it's a big thing, but it's things like that where I just unapologetically lent into it because they loved it, they liked it, and it's like, at no point was I thinking I'm going to get more learning out of them because of this.

6:17 I was simply thinking they're having fun. It's a special, it's a special moment they can enjoy in a communal way. And it's interesting, you know, you said about how some of them maybe didn't come in with anything I did. I didn't know this straight away when I was a teacher. But you sort of learn it through these experiences that you cannot take for granted what people, what people do at home for Christmas. Do you know what I mean? The people that celebrate Christmas, that is wildly different depending on what the family, you know, that they're potentially in. So yeah, you have to be so aware of that stuff. If you're doing a thing where it's like, Oh yeah, everyone bring in this thing or everyone's going to do this certain thing for Christmas or make a certain thing or bring something from home. You just, you just, yeah, you've got to be prepared for. There's going to be someone whose parents go, no, not doing that, Yeah. Or or don't, or they just don't even get the chance, the opportunity to do that. Do you think?

6:58 Do you know what I mean? And then the idea that they come in and then think, oh, no, I can't join in now. I'm not, I can't be part of this community because everyone was brought in this thing because I'm their parents made it with them last night and I didn't, I didn't get to. I was always hyper aware of that. This, it's such, it's absolutely right. It's power forever. And there's layers of it because there were always some families who don't celebrate Christmas. Yeah, but at all. But then I think you're thinking more of as well, those families who do celebrate Christmas, but maybe just don't do as much for it or or can't bring something and I can't. Do it for whatever reason. Yeah. And I think kind of encapsulated in that whole thing is I think you can still celebrate and mention Christmas and do things and be really respectful. Yeah. Like, and, and, and I think it's important, you know, people might always say to things like what about the children who don't celebrate Christmas? And I'm always like, OK, don't like you don't have to celebrate something, but but you know, as a community, and we're going to have these ideas in our classroom and that's fine.

7:46 No one's forcing you to celebrate at all, even to the extent of I celebrate Christmas, but I'm not religious at all. Yeah, some people might say, you know, I don't come in and say, well, why are we doing our Christmas maths at our school? I'm not, I'm not religious at all, but I do celebrate Christmas, so I think it's OK to have a tree in the room. Someone else might think, well, I'm not religious and I don't celebrate Christmas and I'm part of a different kind of cultural or background. OK, We can do everything respectfully though. We can still enjoy it, We can still have lots of fun with it, and we don't have to infringe on anyone's rights whatsoever. And I actually really, really, really like the spirit and the community that comes out of it. And I understand people's views who think maybe I've said it myself before about how faith schools in general don't, don't sit right with me in like a secular society when they're funded by taxpayers and it's then a school that's, you know, maybe Catholic or putting down like this religious doctrine, in my opinion, down to the children.

8:38 I, I completely get all that. I do think it is different though when we talk about just celebrating Christmas. And stuff, yeah, when we're talking about like hanging light, pretty lights on a tree and like putting up sparkly things on the ceiling, I'm like, it's, it's just, it's not really about that. Do you know what I mean? It can be about that. I understand the link there. But you can also do it, like you said, in a way that's just, we're just celebrating our community. And it's and it's, yeah, OK, it's cultural. I get it. But and, but it's not mandatory for style. I'm not going to say no child, I don't care what your parents said. You are going to make this Christmas thing and you are going to take it home and hang it on a tree. I'm not, I'm not going to do that. You know what I mean? It's just going to be, well, you can join in. You don't have to join in. Here's a separate thing. If they were doing Christmas colouring for whatever reason, they can't do that. It's OK Colour this thing in now. I'm not going to go and sit in the corner equally and say stare at the wall now. You can't.

9:21 Like I feel like people read the Daily Mail. It'll be one or two things. It'll even be that example I just gave there of like, Oh yeah, making the kids do this or it'll be more likely. Yet woke lefty teachers won't. They won't do Christmas now in their school because there's someone that doesn't do it. So no one gets to. Step into a school, Yeah, Step into a school in December and tell me Christmas. Step into Christmas, step into Christmas. Absolutely right. But yeah, I think that just the overarching point there is just like I'd say to people, look, chill out. It's such a nice period of time. It has connotations with religion. I understand why some people might not like that and I understand why people from different cultures might think why am I not being represented, etcetera, especially in a state funded school.

10:01 I for one think that we should be celebrating all cultures in school. I think it would be great. We should really go hard on Christmas. It's fantastic. Most children in our community, in schools that we worked in did celebrate Christmas. So it was very relevant. And there are some children who celebrate different parts of the year. I think more can be done around that as well. You know, if you celebrate parts of the year that aren't in necessarily our calendar as public holidays but are really important to you, I think we should be doing something around that as well. Nodding towards it and do you know what? Not telling the whole class, you have to observe this new one as well now for it to be fair and equal, but simply saying this exists, isn't this interesting, Let's look into it, let's celebrate. What can we take from this, celebrate from a different cultural aspect that we can share and have strands among us community and strengthen our bonds with each other.

10:44 Just grow up a bit, is what I'd say to people moaning about it when grown adults are bawling their eyes out about it. Both ways, by the way. Oh, you can't do Christmas in school. It's offensive. Oh, we should only do Christmas in school. We can't do anything else. You're indoctrinating. Like, chill out. Yeah, none of that's happening. It's just a nice thing for the kids. Yeah, and come to my class because they made-up their own versions of, you know, extra ways of doing things because one year I had a little Christmas tree as well at the back thanks to my job share. Julie, a legend, she brought that in. I was like, yes, it's such a. Great day. Did you do anything? You know, I turned up every now and then, every now and then. But yeah, she brought in this lovely mate, a huge Christmas tree to be fair. And then the kids, for some reason, they were just troll trolling me, decided just to hide their fruit from the lunch boxes in the in the tree.

11:27 And at one point I was just like, sorry. And I reached in, I just pulled out this like apple with a bite out of it. So someone put and I could just see this group of lads just laughing. I was like, who's put that apple in the in the Christmas? This is not a bauble. I'll never forget that. It's a real experience. Oh. God, some kind of tradition made-up. Now just just it's the tree fruit dweller. Oh no, it's the lunch tree that takes away the bits we don't want to eat. Brilliant. Did you eat your apple at lunch? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Your tree is just like falling over from the weight of a planet of grapes or something. Don't worry, there's a melon on the other side holding it up. Oh. Absolutely mad. You're like Inka Plunk. Yeah, it's like that one Christmas tree. All the fruits.

12:10 Ridiculous. But I mean, it did make me laugh. I'll just say like, yeah, I was. I wasn't even mad. I was like, it was pretty funny. It was pretty fun. It's quite funny to put. It out and the more you make out like it's a horrible thing, the more fruit that you will find. Yeah, literally we had a question. Obviously we had the Q&A on Monday, which is all Christmas theme, but there are a couple we thought, let's just let's just keep this for the main chat because we're obviously doing a Christmas episode today. And one of the questions we got asked was very interesting to me. And it's in it's kind of in this this thing we're talking about of just, yeah, it's just fun. It doesn't need to be a pedagogy. It doesn't need to have an outcome all the time. It can be for the sake of enjoying it. And one of the questions we got was about when is it acceptable to stop work? You know, you're winding up towards the end of the term, It's coming towards Christmas.

12:51 When's it acceptable to stop maybe formerly being on the timetable and start maybe just having your Christmas parties, doing whatever you want to do, making Christmas cards, decorations, singing, dancing part, whatever it is? Is there a line where you think, oh it's OK from here? I mean loosely. I think the December rule is always good. Like I probably wouldn't start doing Christmas things in general in my class until. But would you stop work? Oh no, that's the question. Like Chris says, when's it acceptable to stop work? It's like, I think it's almost flawed. There's a flawed question really, because you kind of turned it into another question or equally. When you were talking. About it so there's two things there I wouldn't stop work is the is the answer to that. Like no, like not really. Like I'm not, there's not a day in the term where I go from this point on.

13:33 We're not doing any more like maths and English or afternoon subjects at all. Like I don't do that. I, I think it's just that you just weave in other things that there's definitely a point in the term. It's kind of what I was getting at first, where it ramps up a bit like the ratio of Christmas activities to normal, quote unquote work. It's probably quite high in the last week. But let's go back to the first bit and now that first, because I absolutely I think we can come on to that with the ratio should I can come in. But in terms of stopping work, a lot of people say this and I think I'm on side of it, which is we don't stop work. And I think what you said like there isn't a hard date. I personally think it's I think it's good for the children genuinely to have that routine and it not be like there was always something about when you said, Oh, we're not doing a maths and English today or tomorrow.

14:17 And the kids yippeed with joy, but before they even knew what they were doing. And it's like almost like it's a treat to not do maths and English. I did quite like the whole thing of no, you know, we're keeping this routine up until the end of time. We're doing it. We're doing it might be the odd time, like you said, we sprinkle in some bits. We're not stop working though, And I think that routine helps the kids gets into the term, helps the routines, etcetera. But I still think you coming on to the second point. I agree there. And I'm wondering where you where your line is when you start springing stuff in. When does that start? How much do you put in? Just like I'd say like the last couple of weeks is, is is fair game to me because you've got, if you've got a big school, everyone's got to get their Christmas party in. You can't do it all in the last week. That's just crazy. Everyone, you know, a lot of schools with their Christmas fair and some sort of sometimes I'll do that in an afternoon slot, maybe after school if you're in different school. I think in the last couple of weeks before Christmas or before the term breaks up.

15:02 Sorry, it's completely acceptable to just dot those things in. But I want to change you a little bit in terms of like, let's really define as well normal work. Does this count? So because I know everyone does this, you're still doing maths in the last week and you get out of the Christmas coordinates, does that, does that to you, does that qualify as what we're kind of determining as we're still doing? Normal things, yeah, completely. Because you're on timetable still. You do maths when you do maths. It's still a maths lesson. What people tend to do, and I did it a lot in year 4 and people wanted to do This was you. Christmas coordinates is such a big thing, isn't it? But it was in the realms of cool. I'll teach it then yeah, it's still. It was it was still maths. It was still teaching, Yeah. Oh, but instead of making a Pentagon today, you're making Rudolph, you know, with your, with your coordinate, whatever it might be, it still was rooted in here's a lesson, guys. I'm going to teach how to read and write coordinates. Have a go yourself.

15:50 Oh, by the way, you're creating a picture which is a snowman. Do you think that's the best way to do it? Like in terms of if you're like, we just basically just weaving in the context of Christmas if possible using it to still teach, right? If possible, like a lot of the time people pick their text for English in knowing it's the last couple of weeks of time they pick a text that is related to Christmas that they're celebrating. And, and I think, I think that is when you say the best way to do it, it's just a way to do it. I think ultimately you have to think to yourself, look, I'm balancing everything here by the end of the year. And this is what I always think about in my in my views of what to decide to do when and when and even in the moment of thinking this week and next week before Christmas, should I do, should I do that? I'm always thinking within this year, from September to June or July, whenever you finish, will the children make the progress I need them to make and have the coverage I need them to have?

16:40 The answer is yes. You can come off a little bit, you can have something where maybe the best maths lesson in the world probably wouldn't have involved them sat there for 20 minutes in the intricate details of Rudolph. Yeah. Oh, after 10 coordinates, I know they can do that skill. And in a really good maths lesson, I'd be pushing them onto some, maybe some harder problem solving or maybe a different type of thinking, right. But in that moment of, oh, they're making a picture that they like and they want to colour in afterwards, I can make that decision in that moment to go, do you know what? For this it's OK. It sounds like you've got like a hierarchy in your head of like, like priorities, almost like I want you to keep. I want you to go deeper at this for like I'm I'm picking your brain here because and I think I agree, by the way, like so because that maths example is really good because someone could absolutely come along even in my because I was thinking it's undoubtedly better to weave things into the Christmas spirit and just teach me Christmas.

17:30 But there is a point you're saying which is really good, which is, well, actually, no, you might actually get a little bit less out of them because you've gone a bit too hard on, OK, they've got a colour in Rudolph when you could have moved on to a challenge or something else. Yeah. So where what's your priorities then like in terms of what do you really want out of those few weeks before Christmas as a teacher? So I think the question you want the best outcome, right? And you said, is it the best? This really, really, really depends on stripping it way back. Not to get too meta. What you mean by best? What do you mean by best outcome? If you mean by best outcome, simply how much information they're retaining and learning and working for the curriculum. It's obviously not best that they have a 100 piece coordinate grid to fill out and draw and colour in, right?

18:13 But if we're talking best about a holistic version of best in terms of what they remember and enjoy doing and like, I think you can get a lot out of just sprinkling in some Christmas stuff. Because I always think to myself, just put yourself back in your shoes of your, your 78910 years old, you're in primary school. What do you remember from primary school? And I can guarantee people will remember vividly doing Christmas activities, making Christmas cards, having a Christmas party, seeing your teacher put on some Christmas tunes at the front and you going to get some party rings from the buffet at the back on your plate for 1/3 plate in a row. OK. Is it the best outcome for the academic success of the future of the people in the world?

18:54 No, probably not. Is it the best outcome in terms of giving you core memories for life and enjoying yourself and being with your community and getting out of it in different ways? There's more to life than there's simply academics. And school is vital for academia and it's our number one priority alongside safety of children. But I really think we need to start valuing these other things way more. And when it comes to these moments, is it best for the kids or what do you mean by best? Because I'd argue yes, it's best for the children in a. Multiple different ways. Yeah, No, I'm fully with you. I'm fully with you. And like what you said there like there's more to life, there's more to school, there's more to school, which is probably what you imagine. No, you're right, there's more to school than academia. It's just one aspect of it. And it just annoyingly is the aspect that is the only aspect we really focus on in terms of metrics and comparisons and and the data that we can track. 95% of the year, rightfully so. It is what we think about and do. It is really important.

19:44 I completely, I'm just talking about these, these exceptional circumstances where you just have a choice. And if you can sprinkle stuff in at this moment, I think there are some points as well where it's even better because you're engaging the children more. If you pick a story which is really gripping and uses Christmas as it's like hook. Like I remember in year 6 we did A Christmas Carol. Scrooge and, and the ghost, Christmas Past and bits like that. The kids loved it. Yeah. Like, not only because it's a good book, but because it was relevant to the time of the year we were doing it as well. And we, it would have been daft to do that in the summer term, wouldn't it? And we could have picked a different book and we could have got good outcomes from it. But we picked that book. And I would say arguably in that respect, choosing to interweave it with, with Christmas actually did force better outcomes as well, because they're more engaged in the text in the long run. Yeah, I think there are points where you can point to it and think this obviously isn't better. Like, OK, if you're doing an art lesson and you're making a Christmas card, I can imagine doing an art lesson actually when you really focus on a bespoke skill about shading or or or tone or something, might hit the curriculum better and help their art technique improve more. But you know what we're going to do this afternoon? Make a Christmas card to take home to your family. Yeah, right.

20:50 OK. I'm going to really challenge you now, I think based on everything you've just said. Now this whole conversation, which was all from that first question of like, when's it acceptable to stop work? We kind of said, well, we don't need to stop work. You can just weave things in. What if someone came up to you and said in the last week of Christmas, there's three days left? And I said, I'm not doing any formal subjects for these last three days because I think, and they list off all those reasons about the holistic side of that, why they want the kids there and they're going to be enjoy, enjoy what they're doing. They're engaged. What would you say to them? Say I've got these activities planned for these entire three days? Not doing maths and English nothing. Have for them have a great time and the proof is in the pudding. I'm a big, big advocate for this. The proof is in the pudding. If you do all of that and you have a track record of children getting to where they need to be and the children still make good progress and then outcomes are actually the kids are doing well academically and they've enjoyed themselves. Crack on.

21:41 I really do believe that. Crack on the issues come in terms of management. If I was a manager and I'd said explicitly not to do that and they say they're going to do it anyway, I think that's different. I think also there are problems when that you might just have a staff team where there's one staff member you trust to do something like that more than another staff member. And that is just real life and that is just true. I think the proof's in the pudding. It has to be backed up with cool, why explain it to me and I'm I'm hopefully quite consistent with this. I really want to just strip it back to trusting teachers as professionals to make decisions whenever I make decisions like that. And I'm going to assume this person who's come to me and said, I'm I'm stripping about 3 days. We're doing all of this.

22:22 They're a trained professional, OK, and they might have genuinely fundamentally different outlook as to how they're going to get the outcomes than I do, but I have to respect that they are professional and trust them to do so. My baseline is trust. Not because I just blindly trust anyone I meet in the street, but this person's come to me with experience and credentials and qualified profession in teaching. So when they say they've chosen to do something as a teacher because of whatever reason they have, my baseline is trust. And then if they do it and outcomes are worse because of it, then I'll pull them up and talk about it. But the baseline is trust because of the position they're in and the qualifications. All right, same person comes up with you. I'm trying to, I've got to get you here somewhere. Same person comes up to you and says actually I'm going to spend the last two weeks at the Christmas term doing completely awkward, not going to single maths, English, nothing curriculum base whatsoever.

23:07 Yeah, they need to really back up. Here comes the point. Like 3 weeks. So my point here last month. My point here is and until I'm proven wrong, fine, but maybe I will be proven wrong one day. But my. Clip I'm clipping that. Maybe I will be proven one day. I mean, I mean, I mean with this like Outlook is, if a professional teacher with experience said that to me, I would be shocked. I don't think many professional teachers would think. That's the right thing to do, right? That's my point. I'm like, you can give me this hypothetical. Like what if someone said throwing a dart at a child would be great for their pet? I was like, they wouldn't say that. Like, OK, my baseline of trust obviously wouldn't go that far to a made-up thing. So my my point is, I think it's really good to stretch it. I do agree with you, but I think that there's a certain base level of OK, until I see teachers acting up ridiculously, I'm going to have that base level of trust. I'm just going to.

23:57 I personally would just be like, OK, why? Tell me exactly why you think that's better? Because I'm worried they're not going to get this, this and this. And if they said that's it, oh, I'm going to do it, then I'm going to do this. Then actually I'm going to interweave it here or I don't think that's important. I could either come back and say, do you know what, let's give it a go then It's interesting. Or do you know what? I actually, I think I disagree. The school policy, we need to do this. You're not going to cover the curriculum. There's fundamentals you're not doing quite right here. They are. Do you see them? And again, I trust as a professional, maybe they're going, Oh yeah, that's true. Let's meet in the middle in this situation. Maybe we can weave in some Christmas, Christmas activities, but try and tackle a couple of these things that we're finding tricky. Yeah. And do that sort of conversation. Yeah, I agree. It is you like, you're right. It's all based on conversation. Trust with your staff. You know, you're coming from a very managerial perspective, but yeah, that's right. So going back to that question, there's not really, there's not really a answer, a answer, a answer. There is a answer as to how to say sentence actually. Maybe we should teach English always. There's not really an answer.

24:50 Welcome to and Christmas Carol. Yeah, cheers. But yeah, you're right. The I don't think there's a hard and fast answer. I think it's nice to put stuff in there. I, I, I equally don't like it when someone says we're not doing anything Christmas at all, ever, compared to when someone says we're doing all Christmas, all for a month. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, They both make you go, oh, yeah. It's kind of a conversation. Let's just think about it. Exactly. Thank you. Let's move on to our next little question. We wrote ourselves here, Christmas parties. Why are they always That's what we wrote down just word for word on our very short bullet point list here. Things to talk about. Why are they Dylan? It's just. Nuanced question. Just to clarify, adult Christmas party, it's not the Christmas party who just spent 20 minutes saying with the kids.

25:34 It's like, lovely. Well, I, I've, I just think about Christmas parties in general in any workplace, they're going to be sprinkled with a bit of awkward, like there's going to be like a little bit of weirdness going in there because. Oh, Dylan's coming. There's a bit of weirdness. There's a little bit of awkwardness. A little bit in all context. By the way, we're filming this on the morning of when we're going into our old school to host their Christmas quiz. Like for them? Yeah, but they're still having a Christmas party after this. So like this, even this is set. Yeah, having the the classic formal, Yeah, sit down. Me or Christmas party, everyone pays £50, you go somewhere and there's like 400 other people. There, Yeah, classic Christmas party. I just think they're so naff because like, at the end of the day, think about it in terms of the people you work with. You might be really good mates with something. You might work in the best place in the world where you have some fantastic friends.

26:19 I worked with you. Let's get real. So we met through through work. We met our partners through work. Like we we got a lot of good friends in teaching. But even if every single person in your school you get on with and and are fine with, you're not mates with them all, you're not friends with them all. And because you you come from a workplace, I think putting that into like a party atmosphere, it's it's always going to be a bit strange because you're always going to get someone who has no philtre. And then suddenly you see your mate dancing on the table. You've never seen, feel like you've never cracked a smile all year. So it's suddenly like, whoa, come on, there's someone getting with someone who they shouldn't be in the corner, but it's just someone's slut dropping on the floor. This is all great for me. This sounds fantastic.

27:00 As an observer, I'm like this is brilliant. I think if you just sit back and watch, so it'd be fantastic. But as actual events, like people don't want to necessarily let their hair down all the time because it can just get a bit awkward. They. Can be all right. I think they can be right. If, yeah, if, if, if people can let their hair down, like you said, and you've got a decent environment. It's a bit of luck really, isn't it? You have a few, you know, prerequisites to the Christmas party being good. I think that the best the, the Christmas party, there's like a correlation between how formal it was to how good it was. Like the more formal, the better, I'm joking, the worse. Yeah. Like, like if you like, we had it once where like you said, we went to a big hall of like loads of other groups of people. The whole table sat down, you're together.

27:40 And then there's another company over there or another school over there. Yeah. Yeah. They were just a bit weird and clearly money making opportunities for people to just like. Batch. Cook these these crappy roasts, put them out for £50 and just hire a big hall and make money. I thought they were just a bit crappy to most, whereas the best versions always genuinely. I'm not saying it could be hosted quizzes or anything. We did a quiz every year at our school and we always wrote the quiz for anyone to like a fun quiz. It's not just like a really high brown thing. City rounds, having fun. People would bring their own food for a buffet, people would bring their own drink and it was like just in in the school hall like after hours like when everything shut shut down. Obviously that to me was better because it was more relaxed. Yeah, it's good fun.

28:20 So tonight we're recording this was on Friday. So this has happened now when you're hearing this. But tonight after our quiz, we're we're all playing in the we've got a game where we play in the dark with a little glow bands on with the it's literally hide and seek for adults in the whole school lights off. It's and we've done it before and it's honest to God, the like better than any Christmas the past that I've ever done just that bit. And we're doing a quiz before and it's silly and we've got crazy rounds 100. Percent. I think what we should do in the future is instead of a quiz night, you and I should run a traitors night. A Traitors. Night and we should be like Claudia you. Be Claudia, I'll be wink on Yeah, yeah, I'm with you. I'm with. You, this is good. You'll get a wig. You're the fringe. Yeah. I think we should do a traitors night. I think that be so good. I reckon we could run a really good traitors night. But yeah, that quiz we've written, we used to, we did it every single year.

29:08 We did one for charity one year. Remember in COVID? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because everyone's locked down online, raised quite a lot of money for charity. So I'm going to say this right now to people watching, if you want to sit in another charity quiz. Yeah, I think we could. It doesn't take honestly. One if one person messages Dylan and says yes, he'll be like, you see one, Yeah, one person, one person down. If you're listening to whatever you're listening to this arm of YouTube or Spotify already with the different things we have, leave a comment down below saying I want the quiz. If if at least one person does it, we'll do it. If 20 people do it, we won't do it. So we need someone C19C-19. Don't. Comment again, I'm not sure if Tom's going to be the saviour or the ruiner of this one because normally writes into any question. Well, he, you know, puts it out. Good lad. Tom really happens out.

29:48 So, yeah, I don't know. Do you like Christmas party? Like I, I don't like parties full stop in normally. But I tell you what, we're going out with our with the team we're working on with Matsu and I couldn't be more excited. I think maybe because we're remote, we don't see them every day. Maybe that's something? There's a way to think about it probably with our Matsu team, like we are just one little unit right now. It's kind of like going out of your year group. If I went for a Christmas party with my year group team, that's kind of different and I'm probably enjoy that, more naturally enjoy that than I do when it's the entire staff. Do you hate every but like, like you said, because what ends up this is the way I see it, right? And I don't not enjoy them, by the way, My baseline is I'd always go, they're good enough for me to me to sit there and think, is it worth £50?

30:29 I'll always be like, yeah, I think so. Yeah. I always think it's all right. It's never, it's not the most amazing thing that you said, but it's all right. And but all that ends up happening really is you just sit with the people that you you would have gone out for that meal with anyway, those five people. And you don't really talk to anyone. I can't speak. I can't talk. At all you would talk. To anyone, don't talk to anyone else or me or anything. And you're right, though, I think some, but some I can see the downside for other people. If you're, if you're fortunate enough to have a really nice team that you work with, you're quite good friends of at school, then that might not be so daunting to you. But there's always, always say always, most of the time there's going to be someone or a couple of people who just feel a bit like, I don't really know where I fit. I don't know what, what click am I in? Like some schools we've had people write in and say that schools are unbelievably clicking. It's like almost toxic, like friendship groups. Like I can imagine in that environment, people listening in, you know, that situation, thinking anything worse than going to the Christmas party.

31:25 They've joked on your own. What's going on with me? I gotta speak. I wonder, I stayed down to speak, how often did you have like a little side chat or a little sidebar where you would go out with like your year grid team? And I'd like you said I'd usually enjoy it more because you speak to them more. Exactly. And I'm the most awkward person in the world anyway. I didn't speak to anyone in my school until you joined a year later. And even then you were like my pathway to say hello to everyone. Hey, guy it. Was tough dragging him up. You drag me up, I drag you down and then which were same thing something a big part of any any staff meeting or meeting staff do staff just staff team is Secret Santa, huge Secret Santa. And I wanted to come to you straight away because we had a few stories written him and I don't think I'll be able to read this one without losing my mind and dying of laughter. So I'm going to throw it over to you. OK, cool.

32:18 This is anonymous submission ready. The staff room was buzzing with noise, everyone laughing. It was a great school and a close team. A few colleagues on maternity leave had even dropped in to say hello. The place felt genuinely warm and festive. Then we started opening the gifts. Jane, let's call her Jane for this, froze the moment she saw someone unwrap the present she had bought. Her eyes locked on it. She had mixed up the tags. The gift in their hands belonged to her partner. It came from Anne Summers. She lets out a tiny squeak and leapt forward to block the view. The movement did the opposite of what she had intended and every head turned. She lifted the box in a panic. A butt plugs stay back at the room.

33:01 She tried to hide it. Silent spread. Butt plug stared. Oh my God. Great. Yeah, great verb choice there. The chair of governors broke the silent room with one line delivered in the softest voice. Please put your butt plug away, Jane. Secret Santa ended right? There. Where's she going to put it away? Oh, Dylan. Dylan, back in the box. It's Christmas. Don't do that to me. This was on the verge of that didn't happen to the absolutely. Yeah, I was thinking the exact same thing. I was like, is this made-up? But it seems so like. It's just insane. Funny, though, that is where Secret Santa.

33:42 Actually, that was just a mistake. Right? So she's not gone too far there. That's just a message. You picked up the wrong box. Yeah. How far is too far for you? Like, what's what's? I'm thinking back to gifts you've got where you're quite a good sport, but for other people. You know, a couple of years ago, remember in the staff room we did Secret Santa. Not just a couple of years ago every. You've got pretty much every. True, that's true, But this one comes to my eyes. You'll probably think of the same one. Do you know? Why? Why? Because this year you had to buy a Secret Santa gift with the initial of the person. So your Hayden, your gift had to begin with an H That was a rule I. Literally forgot about that context. I just remember the gift. So it was a head and it was head and shoulder. Head and shoulder. And a hair comb, Right? Hair brush. It was a hair brush. Of course it was.

34:23 Yeah. Oh my God, yeah. No, I didn't know who it was. I was like was obviously from Dylan. Oh, he's the only one balls enough to have got me this and it wasn't. It was from the. Sweetest woman like who? You never ever. She was a joke. Creasing up all red wasn't. She's just so funny. Yeah, that really caught me off guard. It was funny. So what is the line there like I see like with that. OK, butt plugs too far. Yeah, isn't it? Yeah, but it was an accident. That's. The of course, but I'm just thinking of lines right now. But like, if I was thinking of that as natural Secret Santa, that's too. Far, isn't it? I think so. I think. I think to me though, Secret Santa, it should be like, not useful. It should be funny. It should be a joke. It's supposed to embarrass. Like realistically I see it as like you try to embarrass the person. Well, that's the issue with with doing it in the workplace is like if you get the wrong person, There's been times before where I've done Secret Santa, I've pulled the name and I've thought getting I can get whatever I want.

35:08 And I've also pulled other names and thought, for God's sake, I don't know the get you a candle or something. I don't know what to get you, especially with like certain personalities in schools, like, yeah, yeah, I don't rub you up the wrong way, but I think it should be there's just a base level of acceptance that when you do a Secret Santa you all sign up to, it's allowed to be a bit embarrassing, it's allowed to be a bit rude, and there's no repercussions for it. A. 100% and I think it even like with our Matsu team, because we've agreed to do Secret Santa, the literal preface to how we're going to play This was right. Everyone in Yeah, have £10 limit yet sounds good. OK. It has to be embarrassing. It has to be funny. The whole point is to try and make the person laugh when they open it like that being the rules to me, I was like, yes, this is what's the secret that is 4.

35:51 No one's now going away and thinking, oh, do I get the candle or should I be silly? I don't know if they're gonna like the silly. Oh, get the silly. The whole point is it's got to be silly. Now you know I. Wonder what Wick you're gonna get? Yeah, almost. I'm looking forward to it because some of the team's going. On field day. Absolute field day. Anyway, we had another Secret Santa submission. I don't know if you want to read this. One. OK, I'll read this one. So this is again, what's the story? OK, I once hijacked the Secret Santa. I did this by printing out a picture of a guy I worked with who thought he was God's gift. How did he get a picture of you? I signed it with an over the top signature, framed it and wrapped it. I wrote the gift tag to another colleague who the guy in the picture was overly flirtatious with and waited.

36:35 On the day of of the Secret Santa, I swapped the gift with the original and watched the look of disgust as the signed photo was unwrapped. Never owned up to it still. You're a genius. You're. You're an evil genius. This is what we're saying about Secret Santa. Should be. Yeah, that is maybe a bit too. Far. Yeah, You know, that's the perfect example, isn't it, of taking even the rules of like, embarrassing, maybe a bit too far because it's like personal. This person fancies other person. And actually, and you pretend it's from someone else. Yeah, you got to own it if you're doing it. Yeah, that's always you're breaking the rule. There's a rule break there. I'm swapping the gifts. Hilarious, really funny and the kind of banter I would be up for and would want to see in my.

37:19 Workplace when we do are quizzes for people, we always say a prize and and it just made me think they're thinking, oh, someone thinks that God's gift doing a signed frame picture of themselves every single year. And this is the joke. The winner of the quiz that we've done for our school gets some kind of personalised gift for me and you. We've had a year where you photoshopped our faces onto step Brothers and put a framed picture up, which is still somewhere in that school. Yep, we've done mouse mats for the office staff who won. Do you remember? Yeah, well, the old school, our faces were on it. We were in the garden. We did like a fake photo shoot. Yeah, like live laugh love. We live, laugh, love. We did. We did a a key ring which is still on. We've got still on. Ex colleagues still got on their keys right now.

38:00 The plushy, the. Plushy me my made. A teddy plushy with Dylan's faces. The point is, it's all completely horribly self indulgent, over the top, and not remotely good prizes for anyone ever. And, and having done the quiz already, we can say that we outdid ourselves this year with It's Just Me and Hayden on. We've got a big framed picture of making you looking way too serious. Absolutely ridiculous. I'm hoping it goes up somewhere on the score, right? Let's just wrap it up there. Wrap it up, get it Christmas, wrap it up, wrap it up. Quick one for the next couple of weeks, we're only going to go down to 1 episode. It's going to be Q&A. We have definitely not already bulk recorded them so that we get time off. We won't be wearing the same thing and I won't know what's coming up already because we did that for some reason 2 days ago before we recorded these. Really good prediction skills there.

38:41 Yeah, I think that will happen. So one a week for the next couple of weeks and then in January we're back and bigger and better than ever. There's only one thing to say now, isn't there? Oh, after three, you don't know what it is. After three 123. Merry, leave us a review. Leave us a review where we get your podcasts. We nearly got. It we need to that call to action leave us a review doesn't know what you think. Listen to other episodes. Share with a friend. And Merry Christmas. Bye.