My love language (much to my husbands dismay) is gift giving. I love giving gifts, I love receiving gifts. Everybody loves a gift. This is conventional wisdom, and to some degree there’s truth in it. Why? Because a gift is a symbol that says someone was thinking of you, and the human condition is such that everyone likes to know that they matter to someone else. That makes this time of year PRETTY AWESOME in my book!! While I have received my fair share of eye rolls through the years, I am SO the girl who gifts all the time. Happy notes make ME happy, surprise gifts delight me, and I HEART it when someone surprises me a with a sweet tea just b/c they know it’s my fave. Of course, I love to reciprocate, and this time of year makes it even easier to get away with it, 😉
Thanks to my Voxer family one “new” thing that I like to do fo our staff is the “12 days of Christmas”. People in our #WDTVS do things like cooking a staff dinner, arranging for a Santa to come give out gifts, to a veritable Pinterest board of creative gift giving. Last year, I tracked ours via Smore, which you can see here. Gifting doesn’t have to be expensive. It doesn’t require rediculous amounts of planning or effort. Especially when it’s for your STAFF or team, it just has to be genuine. Heartfelt. Fun. Don’t focus on how much or how little you spend, but rather on how much this will mean to the individuals for whom you’re gifting.
This year I’ve added to my list of potential possibilities…as well as creating a graphic for each day via Canva. (If you aren’t using Canva to create ALL your lil’shareables…you are missing out!!) I haven’t decided yet how I am going to share them…but pretty sure I am going to go the Melinda Miller route and share via Remind.
Here is a list of all that I am considering for this years 12 days…just in case there are Wolves who come across this post, they can still be surprised!
- Doughnuts
- candy canes
- jeans day
- flannel/jeans day
- sweatsuit/sweatpants day
- chocolate in their boxes
- hot chocolate bar
- apple cider bar
- buffet of baked treatie treats
- gift card raffle ( I buy $30 of gift cards and raffle them off every hour! The name drawn gets to come down and pick which card they want! This was a hit last year. I use my own $$$ to purchase the gift cards…totally worth it!)
- bagels
- team jersey day
- handwritten cards
- team picture photo booth
- popcorn bar
- post it pads with stamped initials (divide these up to conquer getting it done, super cute and personalized!)
- arrange a cookie exchange
- dessert bar in the lounge (Thinking PTA moms for help on this one!)
- Breakfast taco bar (Again, thinking supportive mommas to help here!)
- time off to plan, collaborate, meet (I can cover recess like a champ!)
- Happy hour! (No, Silly. I mean the sonic kind! A fun drink run makes any day brighter!)
Any or all of these ideas would be appreciated by your staff. 12 days too many? Pick a couple for Fridays in between now and then. We meet for PLC’s each Wednesday and I am hoping to decorate the PLC room with seasonal goodies. I am thankful for the hard work my teachers put in, for the long hours I know they have been working. Their classroom instruction has tightened up lately, and I know it’s because they are feeling that mid-year crunch. With our mid-year data coming up, they are most focused on making sure our Wolves make the gains we know are necessary to meet our EOY goals. If I can make these three weeks just a little less stressful, then that’s what I want to do. Balanced leadership demands that you spend time appreciating and supporting your teachers…regardless of YOUR love language! Let me know if I can help!
fa la la’ing,
Amber
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