What our students lacked in finesse they made up for in enthusiasm. They sang along to the record as they bent and straightened their knees and made their pyramid hands go up and down. They formed a single file with minimal shoving. They yelled, “Walk like an Egyptian” at the top of their lungs as they walked through the back door of Ethan’s awesome pyramid and out the front door. They took turns climbing up the little stepladder, with a hidden Polly holding their hands, and peering over the red bow on the top of the pyramid for their photo opp moment. When some of their parents guerilla-crawled across the floor with their video cameras and phones to get closer, they looked like wannabe Spielbergs taking a Cross-fit class.

Nobody fell. Nobody else cried. Which in the preschool world is a raving success.

Polly leaned over and whispered, “Wow. Just wow. I could spend my whole life doing this.”

“Great,” I whispered. “Then you can be in charge of the next one.”

The audience cheered and howled. The students sang and danced up a storm. Time flew. As soon as each class finished its number, the adults backstage scrambled to attach jingle bells to the kids’ shoes with twist ties for our grand finale.

Finally, we were all on stage together. The teachers from the front row came up to join us, along with our bitch of a boss. Pandora’s mother moved in to take over one of the front row seats. Several other people followed—parent see, parent do.

We sang and circled around to Woodie Guthrie’s “Hanukkah Dance.” Then Gloria brought out her ukulele to accompany us as we sang and clapped to “If You’re Happy and You Know It, Kwanza’s Here.” The kids put those jingle bells to work with “Jingle Bell Rock.” Ethan slid a green slipcover over his pyramid, and two of his students rolled it center stage and we all danced around it for “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” We brought down the house with “We Wish You a Happy Howliday and a Bark-Filled New Year.”

“Home sweet home,” the dogs and cats yelled, their arms stretched wide. They walked carefully down the stage stairs the way they’d rehearsed and then ran to their parents in the audience.

With perfect timing, the doors to the lobby opened. In walked the shelter dogs, big red bows around their collars, volunteers in Santa hats holding their leashes. Several other volunteers carried out cats in crates with big red bows on top. Everybody oohed and aahed.

I walked over to the mic. “We hope you enjoyed our howliday tail. And we hope you’ll help these animals find their home sweet home, too. All the dogs and cats you see here, the non-preschool ones anyway, are available for adoption through the Marshbury Animal Shelter.”

“Maybe some of the preschool ones, too,” somebody yelled. Everybody laughed.