For The Teachers

Luca's class has 3 certified teachers and 9 high school students who rotate into and out of class, with 1 of the 9 working in the classroom for pay before and after school. If you were keeping track, that's 12 'teachers' to get gifts for this year.

Because they have been doing this for years and know it will be asked, they informed us that we could deliver gifts for teachers should we so desire on the 15th of December since the 16th is the last day before school is closed for winter break. They also provided all the names so there was no asking your 3 year old or sending a blank gift.

Because they are funny ladies, they kindly requested we not give them a tin of cookies with a big 'my kid helped make these!' style note on them. Cookies? Fabulous. Kid helping? No thanks. After all, they are with these kids 5 days a week, and they know firsthand how very much you probably do NOT want one of those kids sticking their grubby hands into the cookie dough.

The afternoon of Luca's preschool Christmas party (last Friday) I took her home with me and on our way we stopped at a craft store. I let her have her pick of ornaments to make for the teachers, and she ended up selecting a candy cane ornament kit. We made them last night and packaged them up to be delivered today. By 'we' made them, I really mean 'I' made most of them while Luca micromanaged the process and got bored with stringing beads onto pipe cleaners.

This picture makes me sad in its blurriness, but that's what I get for shooting at night in flourescent lighting in auto.

When all was said and done, we'd made 15 candy canes (12 for the teachers, 3 extras to keep) and I needed to find a way to say who they were for and who they were from. I considered tying a ribbon to them with Luca's name and the year, but it turns out it was 11 pm before I had that thought and I didn't have any ribbon for that purpose on hand. So I improvised and free-handed some Christmas tree cut outs on red and green construciton paper. At the top I put the year, across the bottom I put the teacher's name, and on the truck it said Love Luca. I taped the candy canes to the papers, and viola! Easy, cheap, and personalized gifts for 12 teachers!!

PS: Behind Luca you can see half of our huge couch in the dining room. The couch actually comes in two pieces and we set them up on separate walls, but usually they are in the same room. We had to move the couch temporarily, and if you wondered why here it is:

That's the tree we cut up north this weekend (on a permit), which not only reaches almost to our vaulted ceiling, but is also probably 8-10 feet in diameter. And that's Luca, who is over 3 feet tall,  and Rohan who is close to 3 feet, next to it hanging ornaments. Thus, the corner that used to house the couch is the only corner it would fit in. It's by far the most insanely large and beautiful tree we've ever had.