Speaking as someone who has attended both urban public schools, and church schools in the same city, I never gave gifts to teachers, and never observed other students giving them at Christmas time. The first time I ever heard of the custom was watching an episode of Leave It To Beaver, where the poor kid was mortified because he thought his mother intended for him to give his teacher underwear, when in fact she had bought a nice handkerchief to give the teacher. I thought it was just an old fashioned custom even after that, until in college I rented a room from a woman who taught at a church school. She came home on the last day of school before Christmas, laden with books, trays of goodies, cute (and otherwise) knicknacks. One time I was going to take my car in for a repair later on in the day after she had come home with all this booty, so she had me take a plate of brownies to the mechanics... brilliant move. I mean, I've often had good luck with mechanics, and these guys were good and honest. But I'm pretty sure they vastly undercharged me for the repair that time, and were always kindly disposed to make my car a priority after that.

Fay, gorgeous skirt.

Emily, kids are much less likely to give gifts in the upper grade levels when they have multiple teachers.

My mom is a grade school secretary, and she always gets lots of stuff at Christmas. This year she's retiring and is really getting bombarded with gifts.

I have come down with a bad case of the bah humbugs and don't want to do any of the Christmas things this year.

Hi All! I know I haven't been around in forever, but I thought I'd duck in to say a merry merry Crimblemas to everyone! I'll be flying over to Boston on Sunday morning so I'd appreciate it if y'all could arrange for there to be snow, please?

Also, 2008 can finish the fuck up any time now please.

Hi, Jars!

And oh, yes, Fay, that is one glorious skirt. I, too, join in the urging for it to be worn with something backless.

Emily, kids are much less likely to give gifts in the upper grade levels when they have multiple teachers

Oh, I know. But some of them do, so... I don't know, I was just weighing in.

I know O's teachers don't really expect anything. But with his issues, and considering how great his teachers are, I always want to show them a little extra appreciation.

Both kids have snotty, runny noses, wet coughs and Liv has pink eye on top of this sundae of suck. I'm keeping Owen home from school and we're skipping the Date Night babysitting at the gym.

The upside of this is that hopefully, they will be better by Christmas.

Oh, ugh, Cash.

Abby wound up staying home from school all week. She's a lot better, but is still extremely congested and has a tendency to get tired fast, so I figured no point in possibly making things worse by trying to send her to school. She'll have a lot of work to catch up on over the break, but luckily, she's a pretty self-motivated kid and it won't take a lot for her to get it done.

Nate's been a little pisser the last couple of days-- he's understandably jealous that his sister has stayed home. I've tried to impress upon him that staying home when you feel crappy isn't that much fun.

But still... twelve year-old boy. Not quite seeing it that way.

Thbbpt to me. I was just gonna make a smart remark about Nate being so healthy he's never had extended sick days, to know how much a not-picnic it is. But then I realized that was a snotty thing to say.

As of 8:30 this morning we've had 8.8" of snow. Another 8-10 expected today. I need to go grocery shopping, I'm out of cat food. Blargh.

Be careful out there, Sail.

Daniel just called me from the side of the road. He's ok, the car's ok, but the road - wow - not so ok, since he lost control of the vehicle and ended up in a ditch. So he had me call police dispatch to let them know he was going to call AAA, and they need not worry about him if anyone calls to report that he's there.