A couple of my fifth grade girls showed up at school today wearing Santa hats. “Santa hats?” I said. “We haven’t even had Thanksgiving yet!” They giggled and told me they didn’t care, to which the Scrooge in me growled , “No Christmas stuff until after Black Friday!” Of course, three hours later they were still wearing them.

It reminded me that Christmas really is just around the corner, and a great way to celebrate it is with a trio of holiday plays. You can pick up a class set of Ebenezer Scrooge for just three bucks at my TeachersPayTeachers store. This play originally appeared in the Nov/Dec 1998 issue of Storyworks and has been republished in several other Scholastic venues. It’s a succinct version developmentally-suited to upper elementary kids. Another holiday classic is O. Henry’s Gift of the Magi. It’s appeared in Storyworks, Scope, and Scholastic News, and today is available in my book, Read Aloud Plays: Classic Short Stories. You can often snag a PDF for just a few bucks at Teacher Express and download it immediately.

Before devising Scrooge, Charles Dickens was experimenting with the same theme in Gabriel Grub. Grub is a foul-tempered gravedigger who on Christmas Eve gets haunted by a troop of maniacal goblins. The goblins put him on trial and find him guilty of being without the Christmas spirit. It’s wildly funny and eerily spooky at the same time. Suitable for 5th through 8th graders, it’s a great play for that last chaotic day before vacation.

Especially if a few of those goblins are wearing Santa hats.

Happy directing!