TELEVISION SUGARPLUMS : SIMI VALLEY SCHOOLKIDS LEND JAY LENO A MERRY HAND.

Byline: Jason Kandel Staff Writer

'Twas two nights before Christmas and 19 kindergartners from a Simi Valley private school walked onto the stage of ``The Tonight Show With Jay Leno'' for their television debut.

Dressed as sugarplum fairies, reindeer and a Santa, each child stood to recite two lines from the classic Christmas poem ``A Visit From St. Nicholas.''

`` 'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house. . .''

Not an audience member was stirring, not even Jay Leno.

``I felt tears welling up in my eyes,'' producer Jolie Ancel said.

The children followed up by singing ``We Wish You A Merry Christmas'' and the audience cheered.

The kindergartners from the Pinecrest School were the latest youngsters to get the opportunity to spread Christmas cheer on the popular Jay Leno show Thursday night.

Last year a group of first-graders from Balboa Magnet Elementary School in Northridge recited the traditional poem and sang during a segment that also included the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes.

They joined other Valley-area schools that have had students appear on the show.

The Pinecrest kids performed their short skit just after the second commercial break, then huddled around Leno and special guests singer Smokey Robinson and ``Party of Five'' TV show star Jennifer Love Hewitt at the end of the show.

After ``We Wish You a Merry Christmas,'' Leno sat down at the foot of the stage, asked the kids their names and joked with them. He even picked one of them up and turned him upside-down at the end of the show.

The boy who was picked up, Nicholas Blank, 5, was star-struck.

When told later that he had an interview with a newspaper reporter, Nicholas said, ``But I don't have my microphone on.'' Nevertheless, he came through like a seasoned celebrity.

``Jay Leno's crazy,'' said Nicholas, who was dressed in reindeer garb.

Then he started chanting, ``Jay Leno, Jay Leno.''

Then there was the more subdued 5-year-old, Monique DuBois, who wore a red plaid nightgown with pink curlers in her hair for her part in the show.

``It was a lot of fun,'' she said of the performance in front of 360 studio guests, including the children's parents, who sat near the top rows.

``Me and my friend were not nervous at all, but everybody else was.''

Their teacher, Jennifer Brodoski, 25, was a nervous wreck before the show, but afterward breathed easier and rewarded the children with Pokemon stickers.

``You all did a very wonderful job,'' she told them.

The students were invited to perform on the show after submitting a videotape of them singing Christmas carols, said producer Ancel. To try to mix up the act a little bit, Ancel suggested that the ensemble perform one skit and sing one carol.

They took the offer and practiced for about a week. They worked off any pre-show jitters by throwing around Legos or building Lego boats in the NBC studio's large rehearsal hall. The station showed a cartoon on a television in front of them for entertainment. They went through the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that had been sitting on a table in the room.

By the end of the day, the pint-size stars were acting like old pros on some long-running TV show.

``They were telling the directors and producers what do to,'' said teacher Brodoski. ``They think they're running the show.''

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo: (1 -- color) Jay Leno jokes around Thursday with youngsters from Pinecrest School in Simi Valley, who appeared on his show.

(2 -- color) Jay Leno and a group of Pinecrest School youngsters appear Thursday on ``The Tonight Show.''

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer