Elf

Hubby plays Santa to my Advisory kids -- these are also the kids on my caseload so I really get to know them pretty intimately. I have them for all four years of high school -- and by the time they reach their junior / senior year I pretty much turn the administration of my classroom over to them. Consequently, my juniors and seniors also get special Christmas presents.

When we go to Branson each Thanksgiving we spend one day of our trip hitting all the dollar stores. For some reason these stores are really better than the chain ones in our vicinity. Hubby takes his own debit card and figures out the budget and he makes the purchases. Last year the kids all got sunglasses, stuffed animals for the girls, and multi-purpose screwdrivers for the boys. This year the gift for everyone is gloves. The boys are getting flashlights and the girls are getting dangling earrings. Everybody is getting bags of candy. The special gifts are knock-off i-pods that Hubby managed to pick up somewhere at a sample sale for little of nothing.

Every evening Hubby wraps an assortment of presents and I cart them to school and put them around the tree. The excitement grows exponentially with the pile of gifts.

In Advisory this week we made the invitations and delivered them our special guests. All the administrators are invited. So are the counselors and the teachers in our school community (we're Health/Science). Then we have an "angel" who donates food, notebooks, paper, tabs (for the notebooks), and one novel a semester for each student in my English classes and she and her husband always come to our holiday celebration. For her we write handmade thank you notes. Also on Wednesday we set up the greeting committee, the set-up committee, and the clean-up committee. We finished decorating the room -- a set of lights around our door had gone out and we didn't have enough lights for replacement, so we had to figure a work-around.

Names for the gift exchange, along with a price limit, had already been chosen. Everyone brings something to share for the dinner. Hubby makes a huge pot of spaghetti as the main course. One girl brings cherry cheese cakes. Another brings pumpkin bread from her granny. The boys, of course, drag in with soda. Our special guest is bringing sparkling cider and Hubby has gotten Champagne flutes (plastic) for us to drink from.

After we had practiced how we would eat with our guests so they would feel welcome, the kids sat around talking about what they would wear to the party. Now these are 15 to 19 year olds. Never before had clothes been discussed for this event. But this year the group has decided they need to dress up a bit.

The party is Tuesday. I'll let you know how it goes . . .