I’m 62F, and I’ve been a high school literature teacher for almost four decades. My life has a rhythm: hall duty, Shakespeare, lukewarm tea, and essays that breed overnight.
“Interview an older adult about their most meaningful holiday memory.”
December is usually my favorite month. Not because I expect miracles, but because even teenagers soften a little around the holidays.
Every year, right before winter break, I assign the same project:
“Interview an older adult about their most meaningful holiday memory.”
They groan. They complain. Then they come back with stories that make me remember why I chose this job.
This year, quiet little Emily waited after the bell and walked up to my desk.
“Miss Anne?” she said, holding the assignment sheet like it mattered. “Can I interview you?”
“I want to interview you.”
I laughed. “Oh honey, my holiday memories are boring. Interview your grandma. Or your neighbor. Or literally anyone who’s done something interesting.”
She didn’t flinch. “I want to interview you.”
“Why?” I asked.
She shrugged, but her eyes stayed steady. “Because you always make stories feel real.”
That landed somewhere tender.
“Fine. Tomorrow after school.”
So I sighed and nodded. “Fine. Tomorrow after school. But if you ask me about fruitcake, I’ll rant.”
She smiled. “Deal.”
The next afternoon, she sat across from me in the empty classroom with her notebook open, feet swinging under the chair.
She started easy.
“What were holidays like when you were a kid?”
I gave her the safe version: my mom’s terrible fruitcake, my dad blasting carols, the year our tree leaned like it was giving up.
“Can I ask something more personal?”
Emily wrote fast, like she was collecting gold.
Then she hesitated, tapping her pencil.
“Can I ask something more personal?” she said.
I leaned back. “Within reason.”
She took a breath. “Did you ever have a love story around Christmas? Someone special?”
That question hit an old bruise I’d spent decades avoiding.
“You don’t have to answer.”
His name was Daniel.
Dan.
We were 17, inseparable, and stupidly brave in the way only teenagers can be. Two kids from unstable families making plans like we owned the future.
“California,” he used to say, like it was a promise. “Sunrises, ocean, you and me. We’ll start over.”
I would roll my eyes and smile, anyway. “With what money?”
“I loved someone when I was 17.”
He’d grin. “We’ll figure it out. We always do.”
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