Christmas in Chicago: after I had a tough first semester in the classroom, playing Santa for my second graders made it all worthwhile.

The second week in December in my first year as a second-grade teacher, my car got "booted" in the school parking lot--two three-year-old parking tickets had come back to haunt me. I dashed outside without my coat to find the big yellow vice on my front wheel. I got the boot off by charging $500 on Visa.

So when my second graders asked, "Do you give Christmas presents, Mrs. Baldacci?" I could only groan.

I had planned to give every child a class picture for Christmas. I was amazed that the photographer could get 36 second-graders in sync and the lighting right in a single shot. When I saw the results, of course, it was apparent that he was not a genius of photography, but a cheapskate in a hurry. As a solution, I could crop out the ugly background and print it at home for each child at a cost of less than $100, but that was still money I didn't have.

As I was fretting over the boot and my perilous finances, a friend called and said her church did something every year for an "underprivileged" family and could I recommend one?

"Instead of one family, could you do something for 36 children?" I asked her.

The result was that every student in the class would receive a book and either a doll or a Hot Wheels kit. (It was so unexpected, so fantastic, that I didn't realize until later how sexist our choices were. I should have asked for doctor kits all around.)

I did not breathe a word about Christmas to my students. When the children arrived for the last half-day of school before Christmas break, there was great suspense about the mysterious black bags stacked in the corner. I said that they were there when I came in that morning, but maybe we'd have time to look inside them after our lesson.

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After a read aloud and a bathroom break, we dragged the huge bags onto the blue rug and spilled out a treasure trove of beautifully gift-wrapped boxes. Two at a time, a boy and a girl went up and made their choices: one box, one book. It took a long time for some children to choose. With a box in each hand, each child weighed the choice: "Do I want the beautiful gold wrapping paper or the box that isn't as pretty, but is bigger?" When everyone had drawn from the pile, we unwrapped together. Such excitement--a frenzy of joy! The best part: They all got exactly what they wanted. There was no "I like yours better." The Hot Wheels cars were all complete kits--cars with garages or police stations or car washes. The dolls were exquisite. No two were the same. We oohed and aahed. The dolls went home snuggled inside their new mothers' coats. If you were wondering, they were all babies in shades of brown.

After the children left, I attended a Christmas luncheon in the library for the teachers. I was antsy, because 10 of my children had not come to school on that bitterly cold half-day, and I had deliveries to make.

As I headed home from my rounds, I thought about the day. Far more had come out of those bags than wonderful toys. The church people had put something in motion that would last long after the toys were cast aside and the books were memorized by heart. They had reinforced the image of our school as places where good and fun things happen, where people care about one another, where magic occasionally breaks out, where rewards are bestowed. For children who learned young that life was uncertain and often cruel, and that institutions were not to be trusted, that was the most important gift of all.

A former journalist, Leslie Baldacci teaches fifth and sixth grade at Arthur Dixon Elementary in Chicago. This essay is excerpted from Inside Mrs. B's Classroom (McGraw-Hill, 2004), with permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies.

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