Stealing Baby Chocolate Jesus

Happy December! I just told this story to a friend over the weekend and decided it needed to be shared publicly again. I originally posted this tale to my previous blog in 2012, just after I quit teaching the first time. At that point, it had been thirteen years since “the incident.” Now, another thirteen years have passed, but the whole thing still cracks me up. Ah, the things we do when we’re twenty-three… Enjoy!

Confessions of a Former Teacher #1: I Stole the Baby!

[The last part of the title should be read in the voice of the brownie in the movie Willow. If you missed that on the first read, try again. If you don’t know what I’m talking about (sigh heavily) then check out this clip before reading on.]

As you know by now, I have quit teaching. Now that the dust has settled a little… the three-hole punch is packed away and the glue has dried on the “about me” collages… I feel it’s time to let you all in on a few choice secrets from my thirteen-year career. Prepare to gasp.

This first shocking tale of mayhem comes from my very first semester as a teacher. I was twenty-three years old and teaching 7th grade language arts in Cedar Park, TX. And I warn you, there are so many things wrong with this story, your judgmental brain won’t even know where to begin.

Let me set the scene.

It’s December. The chilly Texas air keeps threatening to drop below 40°F. It’s nine school days before the holiday break. The students are restless. The teachers are restless. Tacky Christmas sweaters are being donned with no irony at all. And then, quite suddenly, it appears in the break room: a nativity scene made out of chocolate.

Chocolate Nativity Scene. Just as you pictured it.

I don’t know who brought it. I never heard anyone say a word about it. But there it was. Every day as I ate my homemade peanut butter sandwich or my cafeteria-bought chicken nuggets, out of the corner of my eye, hovering in my periphery, making a comfortable nest in the back of my mind, it was there.  Milk chocolate Mary. Juicy Joseph. Scrumptious shepherd. Cocoa camel. Mouth-watering wise men. And that sweet, savory morsel—baby Jesus himself.

Every day for two weeks, I walked past this gaudy display and three thoughts occurred simultaneously to my brain. Is a nativity scene really allowed in a public school? Isn’t it kinda sacrilegious to cast our Lord and Savior in chocolate? Why can’t I stop salivating? 

Every day for two weeks, it sat there, getting a little drier, a little more chalky in appearance, a wise man or two wilting just a bit. Taunting me.

Then school was out for the holidays. Students fled the campus, half-eaten candy canes hanging from their smile-stretched mouths. Teachers sped away in their sensible sedans, the gleam of freedom shining in their eyes like starlight. The campus would be a ghost town for two full weeks.

Except…

Two days after school let out, my Crazy Cousin Kelley came to visit me and brought along her friend Matt. Proud new teacher that I was, I wanted to show them where I worked. 

Matt, Crazy Cousin Kelley, Me

Since the tour of my classroom (an extremely unimpressive space in a portable building with chalk boards and fake wood paneling) only took about a minute and half, I decided to wow them with a trip into the school building itself. I showed them the rows of maroon lockers and pointed inside locked classrooms at the dry erase boards. (Look! Look at the fancy stuff the INDOOR teachers get!) I pointed at posters advertising upcoming dances and demonstrated how my key unlocked both computer labs AND faculty restrooms, and my fans oohed and ahhed appropriately.

After I showed them the cafetorium (a fantastical place where people can both eat fish sticks AND enjoy off-key choir performances) and pointed out my favorite sign in the whole school (handwritten, hanging over the gym door, proudly proclaiming Do Not Take Balls Out—good advice by the way), we finally found ourselves in the break room. And IT was still there. In the rush to disperse at the last bell of the year, the chocolate nativity had been forgotten.

And, come on, from that point on it was really a no-brainer. 

The heavenly dessert

Yes, Crazy Cousin Kelley and I stole the baby chocolate Jesus from the candy nativity scene in the break room of the middle school where I taught. Matt, bless his pious little heart, cannot be blamed.  He tried to talk us out of it. He said it wasn’t right. Later, when the conquest was complete and Kelley and I indulged in our very guilty pleasure Matt adamantly refused to participate. His soul remained pure. His teeth remained free of the devilish brown stain left by the sweet baby Jesus.

However, my Crazy Cousin and I were beyond reasoning. Satan had a hold of our taste buds and he wasn’t letting go. We barely made it to the parking lot before we had to satisfy our craving and taste our victory.  And our victory tasted like… a two-week-old piece of chocolate that had been sitting out in the germ-infested air of a school. Ah well. We were in our twenties. Our immune systems were strong.

The first sacri-licious bite

After the giddy drive home, Cousin Kelley and I celebrated our baby-Jesus-stealing in the obvious way: we wrote a song about it. Borrowing the tune (and quite a few of the lyrics) from REM, we commemorated our triumph with a ballad. The lyrics are found below. [Beware: Once you read them, you may never be able to listen to “Losing My Religion” in the same way again, so if you wish not to sully that sacred musical experience, I suggest you use the utmost restraint and stop after the next paragraph.]

So, there you have it. Confession #1. The sweet, caring, hard-working young woman you trusted to educate the next generation is nothing more than a thief, a heretic, a baby Jesus eater.  It feels good to admit it.

“Losing Our Religion”
Lyrics by Carie and Kelley
Music stolen from REM

[Note:  I have no doubt that I could do better than this today. I believe my musical spoof skills have improved considerably in the past thirteen years. But I am resisting the urge to revise. This is the song, unchanged, as it was written in December of 1999. Don’t hate.]

[2025 Note: Another thirteen years have passed since I wrote that previous note, but I still stand by it.]
Oh Christ, is smaller
Smaller when molded
Into chocolate
The lengths that I would go to
To see it in bite size
Oh no, I've said too much
I set it up

That's me in the break room
That's me in the bright light
Stealing baby chocolate Jesus
Trying to sneak it out with you
And I don't know if I can do it
Oh no, I've said too much
I haven't said enough

I thought that I felt it melting
I shouldn’t be doing this thing
I think I heard Matt start to cry

With every swallow
I’m waiting to devour
I'm losing to temptation
Trying to keep my mind off it
Like a hungry and sinful fool, drool
Oh no, I've said too much
I set it up

Consider this
Consider this
Jesus is calling to me
Consider this
I bit
It brought me to my knees
STALE
Now my whole theology has
Crashed to the ground
Now I've bit too much
“STALE!”
I bet that it was fattening
I shouldn’t have eaten this thing
I think if asked I will deny

I wish it was a dream
CHOCOLATE NATIVITY SCENE

That's me in the break room
That's me in God’s light
Stealing baby chocolate Jesus
Trying to sneak it out with you
And I know now that I can do it
Oh no, I've said too much
I think I’ve said enough

I bet that it was fattening
I shouldn’t have eaten this thing
I think if asked I will deny

I wish it was a dream
Try, die, cry, why
CHOCOLATE NATIVITY SCENE
Caused a scene
Just a scene, seen

[For more confessions and other stories from my teaching career, check out this page.]

My Wild Wild Ways

My most recent decorated journal, featuring a collage found poem titled “My Wild Wild Ways”

I’ve been feeling wild lately.

My days have been filled gathering acorns and picking up rocks, rescuing wildlife and tending my garden, while my nights have passed gazing into campfires in the backyard or creating crafts well past midnight in a messy corner of my house. I walk outside at all hours– feeling the air, making eye contact with rabbits and foxes, tasting the change of seasons. I even slept out in my hammock one night.

Me reading in my hammock by the glow of my skull book light while an opossum munches on bugs nearby.

My ideas are all over the place lately, bouncing from novel notes to lines of poetry, from old short stories I’d like to revive to new concoctions of words I’d like to brew. It may sound chaotic, but I like letting them be free and uninhibited. How else are the unexpected gems supposed to find their way in?

Do you see the face in the flames, too?

One reason for my recent descent into wildness is definitely the change in weather. I wrote in my journal on November 8th at 6:44PM:

“I’m sitting in my hammock chair on my back porch guarding the humane trap I set in hopes of catching the opossum I saw earlier with the wound on his face. I don’t want a cat to wander in instead. Luckily, it’s a lovely night for opossum catching.*

This is my favorite time of year, when the weather is perfect for being outside at all hours, maybe a little warm in the heat of the day or a little cool at night, but never “too” either way. These are the days (and nights and mornings and dusks) when I can’t stop going outside, when I walk here, sit here, read here, write here, eat here, be here, sometimes even sleep here. I often tell people my favorite month is October, but I need to admit that October can disappoint. Too hot, too humid, too itchy, too sneezy, too much like September or June. Really , my favorite month is this, be it November or February or some random thirty days in between.

My October was wonderful, but not because of the weather. Now the jack-o-lanterns are rotting in the compost pit and the skeleton mugs have been returned to the shelves, and finally October is arriving, late and full of excuses.”

Another catalyst comes from the novels I’ve been reading. I read these two beautiful books back-to-back, and both had me longing for a secret home in the woods.

It’s important to note that I started working on my found poem titled “My Wild Wild Ways” long before I read either of these books.

October, October by Katya Balen is a middle grade novel about a girl named October who was raised off the grid in a little cabin in the woods with her dad. When she is eleven-years-old, her dad suffers a serious injury, and October has to go stay with “the woman who is her mother” in the city. The book is told from October’s point-of-view, and the author does an amazing job capturing her emotions and way of seeing the world. There is nothing supernatural about this book, but it is magical nonetheless, and the end made me cry happy tears in a coffee shop.

Wake the Wild Creatures by Nova Ren Suma is about a girl named Talia who grew up in an old abandoned hotel hidden at the top of a misty mountain with her mom and a small group of other women and girls who all escaped from various abusive pasts. Some of the women, like Talia’s mother, are wanted for crimes they committed in the outside world, and when Talia is thirteen, the outside world catches up with them. Her mother is sent to prison, and Talia is sent to live with relatives she didn’t know existed, but she never gives up hope of returning to her real home in the woods. This book does have supernatural elements, but they are weaved in so subtly and gently, mesmerizing the reader in a way only Nova Ren Suma can. I finished this book not with tears, but with a strong desire to howl at the moon and dance around a bonfire.

Whatever the reason(s), I’ve been spending longer and longer stretches away from screens and keeping my phone on silent a lot more often these days. (My favorite notifications are from my trail cam, anyway.)

Look at this silly raccoon climbing the bird bath to see what’s inside.

The result is a feeling of alertness and aliveness and a connection to nature that I hope lasts all winter and long into spring and maybe, MAYBE even into the dreary days of summer. (Is it possible to be wild in August in Texas? I’d really like to find out.)

* P.S. I did catch that injured opossum and took him to the North Texas Wildlife Center where he had his wounds treated for about a week. Then I released him back on our property. My husband named him Scarburrow. Here’s a photo of him the day we caught him and the day he came back home.

A quick unrelated note:
 
Some people are confused about the difference between my blog and my newsletter, which is understandable since both appear in your inbox from time to time. I’ll try to clear things up.
 
Blog posts are anecdotes or thoughts about one topic, such as our trip to Maine or the closing of my favorite coffee shop. They’re published here on my website, where anyone has access, but people who subscribe to my blog also get an email when I post.
 
Newsletters include a short story or message at the top, followed by news, announcements, updates, and what I’m reading. They’re only emailed to subscribers, but later can be viewed by anyone when I share the link online.
 
*THIS* is a blog post. If you received it in your email, you’re a subscriber. Congrats! If you also got an email called “Winning Poems, Ghostly Tales, & Gratitude for the Change in Seasons,” you’re subscribed to my newsletter, too. Double congrats! I don’t usually share them on the same day, but I did this time to help differentiate between the two.
 
Thank you for following along on my writing (and life) journey. You can unsubscribe from either or both at any time and there will be NO hard feelings on my part, unless you’re my parents.

Eulogy for a Coffee Shop

My favorite coffee shop closed this weekend.

Staycation was special, not just because it was walking distance from my house, or because they served delicious, creative lattes crafted from homemade syrups, or even because of the cozy atmosphere inside and the hammocks and picnic tables beneath the big burr oak out back. Staycation was special because of the people, because of the community created by their warmth and friendliness and the genuine connections they made with their customers.

This coffee shop will be missed by so many. Soon, the little cottage they called home will be torn down so that a four-story apartment building can go up on the block instead. I can only hope a little bit of Staycation’s soul will remain, haunting the new construction with cozy vibes and the enticing aroma of their orange cardamom latte.

Yesterday, I walked over to get a coffee and hang out one last time. The place was packed with people coming to say goodbye. I had my copy of Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver with me. I read a few poems while standing in line waiting to order, until a stranger started chatting with me. I read a couple more poems while waiting for my drink, until an acquaintance from the neighborhood introduced herself and struck up a conversation. I read another poem while sipping my latte, until a friend came in and joined me. <– (These are all things that regularly happen at Staycation. It’s like a magnet for meet-ups.) In all, I read eight poems while I was there, and several lines stood out as being appropriate for the coffee shop’s last day. I underlined a few.

Later, at home, I re-read the eight poems and jotted down all the lines that seemed fitting for the occasion. Then, I rearranged them into a poem commemorating Staycation’s closing. Here is the found poem I created. None of the words are my own, except the title. The rest of the lines come from the following poems by Mary Oliver:

  • “Night Herons”
  • “Mornings at Blackwater”
  • “The Orchard”
  • “Sometimes”
  • “Invitation”
  • “From this River, When I was a Child, I Used to Drink”
  • “We Should Be Well Prepared”
  • “Meadowlark Sings and I Greet Him in Return”

Wisdom from Mary Oliver on Staycation’s Last Day, a Found Poem
- by Carie Juettner

hello, hello, and are we not of one family
in our delight of life?
do not walk by without pausing,
do you have time to linger
for just a little while?
sometimes melancholy leaves me breathless—
the way the days go by, never to return
in the terrible debris of progress.
I will grieve, of course, but that is nothing.
for years, every morning, I drank
a hint of heaven.
all winds blow at last
and the leaves, so pretty, so many
vanish.
one by one the birds
opened their wings and flew
and that was the end of them
as far as we knew.
what I want to say is this:
it is a serious thing
just to be alive
on this fresh morning.
you are capable of choosing,
so come to the pond
or the river of your imagination
and put your lips to the world.

* * *

If you would like to order merchandise from Staycation or sign up to receive news and updates about their journey, visit their online store or follow them on Instagram.