Holiday Hassles

Would you believe that  in the time it took my two daughters to draw pictures of a dragon in their art class, I managed to stock up on pomegranates at the grocery store and drop $200 at Barnes & Noble on holiday gifts and paraphernalia? Impressive, no?

You know, I’m making a bit of a switch with the teacher gifts. I used to always make some sort of delightful blend of holiday food and guide my children through something crafty, but seriously, is this what the teachers want, anyway? Part of this is because it wasn’t too long ago that I had a single delightful nursery school teacher who was also my friend. Now, would you believe that J has four different kindergarten teachers? Umm, that’s a lot of teachers. And I’m simply not emotionally attached to any of them. Okay: I’m attached to one of them, but it’s not like I can play favorites, anyway.  And none of them know me well enough to know that my cookies are more delicious than average, and surely they’ll get plenty of cookies.

How about everyone else?  Are you feeling like the holidays are under control?

Santa's Helper Repairing Ornaments, with Pitcher of Water for Thirsty Tree in the Background

And another thing–this delightful tree of ours? It’s high maintenance. First, because it’s so robust, it’s constantly sucking up water. Second, my children love the tree so much that they want to become one with the tree. They try to incorporate it in their fort-making, they like to lie beneath its branches, they think that we need  to rearrange the ornaments. So I end up having to set ridiculous and bizarre rules such as, for example, No Scotch Taping Blankets to the Tree Branches and No Putting Glass Pickles in Your Mouth. I mean, come on, girls. I’m glad you’re enjoying Christmas, but this is ridiculous. Not to mention that ornaments are constantly falling off for one reason or another, necessitating repairs. Or that every third day we find another one that should have a battery, but doesn’t. Yowza.

On the plus side, I found some of the Bob’s Sweet Stripes soft candy cane candy (which is the very best candy cane product out there), and I checked a bunch of people off my gift list today, and the tree does smell good. So ho, ho, ho!

4 Comments

  1. Amanda

    What did you end up doing for your kid-o’s teachers???? I have a toss up between gift cards and a game for the classroom.

  2. I’m just doing gift cards. I feel like it should be something for them personally. But my friend-who-is-a-teacher said she liked gift cards, personal notes, ornaments, & wine and she wasn’t crazy about candy, baked goods, bath stuff, or candles. But that’s just one teacher’s opinion. I think that my new guiding philosophy will be: “Is this a present that I’d want 25 of?” But I am not a gifting guru. Any teachers out there with opinions?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *