Part 4
December brings opening night — and a rehearsal record nobody is proud of: half the cast never learned their lines. The Trees are handed a song to sing together, and after one Tree falls over and chips a tooth, the costumes finally get arm holes — which means Greg’s apple plan is suddenly, dangerously possible. On the night of the performance, Greg peers into the audience and spots Rodrick — pointing a video camera. Knowing his brother will replay any embarrassing moment forever, Greg refuses to sing; the other Trees follow his lead, the show wobbles into chaos, and in the middle of it Greg finally throws his apples at Patty Farrell — breaking her glasses and bringing the curtain down on his family’s patience. Then comes Christmas. Greg wants exactly one thing: the video game Twisted Wizard. Instead, Uncle Charlie hands him a framed photo of Uncle Charlie, Dad gives him the weight set he no longer wants, and Mom — in the season’s cruelest mix-up — gives Greg the red wool sweater meant for the family’s charity recipient… whose package now contains Twisted Wizard. Rowley, meanwhile, gives Greg a Big Wheel tricycle. Greg is not grateful. He will be in January.
| Section | What you will practice |
|---|---|
| Vocabulary | Words of the stage and the season: rehearsal, performance, refuse, charity… |
| Literary Elements | Setup & payoff, climax, and the art of the anticlimax |
| Cross-Curricular | What stage fright really is, and why the wrong gift stings |
| Month | What happens |
|---|---|
| Dec. | Opening night & Christmas morning — Rodrick’s camera stops the Trees’ song, the apples finally fly at Patty, and Christmas delivers a photo of Uncle Charlie, an unwanted weight set, a charity-bound red sweater — and Rowley’s Big Wheel. |
ⓘ The vocabulary words in this list are selected to help you understand and complete this workbook. Some may not appear verbatim in the original novel.
- Apples fly and Patty’s glasses break.
- Greg spots Rodrick’s video camera in the audience.
- A Tree falls at practice, and the costumes get arm holes.
- On Christmas morning, Greg unwraps the red wool sweater.
- The Trees’ song collapses into silence.
Think back over the month. On a crowded stage, a boy in a tree costume spots one face in the dark — his brother, behind a camera — and decides that silence is safer than song. The quiet spreads tree by tree. Then apples fly, glasses break, and a mother’s smile hardens row by row. Weeks later, under a blinking tree of a different kind, the same boy unwraps: a photograph of an uncle, a weight set from a wish already expired, and a red wool sweater knitted for a stranger — while somewhere across town, that stranger opens the exact video game the boy had circled in the catalog.
The racing heart, the dry mouth, the knees that suddenly belong to someone else: stage fright is one of the most common fears in the world, and one of the most misunderstood. It is simply the body’s old alarm system firing at the wrong moment. Standing before a crowd, your brain reads hundreds of watching eyes as danger and floods you with energy to run or fight. Even celebrated actors and musicians feel it before every performance, and many admit the fear never fully disappears. What separates them from the rest of us is not fearlessness; it is training.
Researchers offer three findings. First, people badly misjudge how much an audience notices: the crowd sees perhaps a tenth of the shaking you feel. Second, rehearsal rewires the fear, because material practiced until it becomes automatic keeps running even when the mind goes blank. Third, the feeling itself can be renamed: performers who tell themselves they are excited instead of afraid do measurably better, same racing heart, different story. None of this explains the sixth grader who could sing perfectly well until a single camera appeared in the crowd. Some stage fright is not fear of the audience at all; it is fear of the replay.
“That settling happens fastest when the material has been rehearsed until it feels automatic.”
This writing task is optional and is not part of your auto-graded score. The feedback below checks only the basics — length, spelling, and grammar — not whether your ideas are right or wrong. It is meant for classroom discussion and creative practice, so feel free to use your imagination!
Writing Task — Part 4 “The Gift That Missed”
Greg’s Christmas is a pile of gifts that say ‘we don’t quite know you.’ Write about a gift you once received (or gave!) that completely missed the mark. What was it? What did the giver THINK you would feel, and what did you actually feel? Tell the story in 6–10 sentences — and end with what the gift accidentally revealed about the giver, the way the Big Wheel secretly revealed Rowley.
No right or wrong — close the screen and tell someone nearby what happened in this part. Can’t find anyone? Tell yourself out loud. The moment you teach it, you truly understand it.
Part 4 Complete!
You finished December of Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
Here are your auto-graded results:
The best last step is to teach it. In your own words, explain what happened — retell a favorite scene, teach a character’s big choice, or sum up the main idea for a parent, friend, or classmate. When you can teach it clearly, you truly own it.
Independent study guide by Garden Heights. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Jeff Kinney. Contains original analysis only; no text from the novel is reproduced. Reference text: This workbook follows Jeff Kinney’s classic text (the standard Puffin edition sold worldwide). Revised 2023 UK editions change some wording and may not match the vocabulary studied here.