Merry Christmas Teacher

Today is both a day that I look forward to and dread. As a teacher this day means the last day before Winter Break, a much needed break for most if not all teachers. For me it is also a day that I dread. It's the day that some children will bring me Christmas presents. It's a difficult day. There will usually be two or three children who will bring useful gifts like a gift card or... well that's about it. There will be the children who will bring something like a stuffed animal, gift set of something vanilla scented, a glass flower or space storage bags. Yep, got those this year and not the ones that you hook a vacuum up to. But then there are the children who have nothing to give. There are some who don't really care that they didn't give the teacher a gift. There are others that tell me they wanted to bring me a gift but... The ones that really break my heart are the ones that tell me that they got me a gift but they forgot to bring it. They assure me that I will get it when we return from the break. Of course there is no gift. I'm not sure if they are hoping to come up with something before they return to school or they are just hoping I will forget, which I do. My heart aches for them. No matter how often I tell them that making me a card is a gift from the heart or maybe a tea bag so I can think about them when I am enjoying my morning tea over the break, there will always be the givers and the wanna be givers.

I would like to think I have become really good over the years at making a child feel that their gift was just what I wanted, although it was a little hard with the storage bag things this year. But I just can't seem to handle the wanna be's. I asked another teacher this year how she handles it. She told me that she never opens the gifts in front of the students. Now maybe it's a southern thing, but that just seems rude not to let the giver see the pleasure on your face when you pull out their carefully chosen gift. But I thought I would give it a try. When I thanked my students for bringing the gifts and told them that I couldn't wait to open them on Christmas day I was met with shouts of "Open them now, open them now!" So that didn't work. I don't know, is there a better way to handle it short of lying and telling them that it is against my religion to accept gifts? I did try telling my students one year that they should buy a gift for the forgotten faculty instead of me like the librarian, school nurse or counselors. That didn't work either. The ones that brought gifts just had to buy an extra gift for one of the others. So is there a way to just enjoy the day for what it is, the last day before Winter Break?