I watched you Jake, sitting with your friends at the making table, drawing, and making puppets and signs. You were talking about what happened when you all went camping over Easter. Do you remember, Rory and Jessica came bustling in from outside? Rory was looking for something and Jessica was close behind, asking him the same question, over and over.

‘But Rory, who’s the favourite girlfriend of them all?’

‘All of them.’

‘Who’s the favourite one?’ ‘

‘All of them.’

‘No, who’s the best one?’

And you said, ‘I think she means only one.’

When Rory found what he was looking for he headed straight back outside. Jessica was following him so closely I thought she going to trip him over. As they were going out the door she was still saying, ‘But Rory, who is the favourite one?’

 Then, when they were gone you said, ‘Hey Marley, it doesn’t matter about marrying Freda. ‘Cause I’m in love too’.

‘Yeah’, said Marley. ‘Why don’t we all marry each other?’

And you said, ‘But boys can’t marry boys and have babies.’

 

 

Just then, you remembered that you’d brought a book from home.

‘That book I brought’, The Night Before Christmas’, you said. ‘Can we do a play of it?’

Marley said, ‘If you let me be Father Christmas I won’t talk about Freda any more’.

‘What did you say?’ said Freda when she heard her name.

‘Jake really likes you so much, we think he’s going to marry you,’ said Marley.

‘I’m asking you to be Father Christmas’, you said. ‘‘Cause he’s red, and you’ve got red on.’

AndWally piped up, ‘I’ve got red too’.

You looked him over from head to toe, and said, ‘No.’

‘Yes,’ said Wally. ‘On my socks.’

‘But he has red all over his T-shirt and you’ve just got red on your socks. Anyway, I’m asking Marley ‘cause when we were at camping you didn’t ask about using my bike. You just did it.’

‘Jake, it doesn’t matter,’ Marley said. ‘I’m in love’.

‘I am too’, you said.

‘And me,’ said Wally.

‘Wally, sit down and make something’, you said.

At mat time we did a play about The Night Before Christmas.

‘Twas the night before Christmas

   And all through the house

       Not a creature was stirring

           Not even a mouse’

You did choose Marley to be Father Christmas, and you chose Wally to be a mouse curled up in the corner.

Wally said ‘No’.