Steven L. Layne 
Principal’s Night Before Christmas 

Santa Claus spreads holiday cheer to a busy principal on Christmas Eve in this clever take on the children’s classic.“’Twas the night before Christmas and all through the town All the students and teachers had settled right down.” Though everybody else has settled down for a long winter’s nap, poor Principal Swell has his hands full. With state-mandated paperwork, computers to fix, bus routes to unknot, not to mention discipline and field trips and all the concerned parents, it seems he’ll never get back home to his own family! Suddenly the school bell rings, and there stands a lively professor with a promise to fix, complete, or manage it all, since he’s already sent the teachers home from the mall. With a few final words of encouragement, he takes off in his school bus: “Merry Christmas to principals—holiday cheer! For they make Santa proud every day of the year!”