Classroom Gifting

Today was a fairly easy day at work. I caught up on a lot of grading, although I still have about 75 essays to grade. I'm hoping to have it all finished by Thursday. In class, we are watching my trademark holiday movie: Elf. Will Ferrel is my one of my favorite actors and I find his "nerdiness" in this film quite irresistible. I was surprised to learn that some of my students had never seen Elf; I hope they are liking it as much as I am.
Tomorrow, we are continuing with Elf and we are also having Christmas parties all day. My morning classes are doing gift exchanges. I decided to have the students that want to participate draw names. They must buy a gift that coincides with the recipients initials. For example, John Brown could get a tub of Jelly Beans. Or, Megan Shephard could get a Messy Scrapbook...you get the idea. For my choices, I found initial gifts of Assorted Miniatures (A.M.) and Jolly Ranchers (J.R.). I put them in cute bags and wrote a little note to each of the recipients. I'm interested to see who chose my name and what gift they come up with for me. Good grief, some kids were saying my initials are M.W. for Ms. Walker. I reminded them my first name is Jennifer; they had forgotten, I guess.
Andrew and I went to the mall after school. I was hoping to find something for his teacher, especially his sign language teacher. Andrew is an amazing signer. He signs most of his conversations with me. And sometimes, when he is really feeling something, he signs with a level of depth and sincerity that only poets can capture. I'm so impressed with his skill and he LOVES the class. But, we couldn't find anything at the mall but I did buy something for my sister. She's hard to buy for; I'll just say that right now! I also found this shampoo and conditioner for men that makes your head tingle. Bob had some like it before (probably a different brand) but I got tihs anyway. He loves the feeling of that conditioner but ran out of it months ago. It will be a good stocking stuffer.
It's really nice to look under my tree and see so many gifts. I still have to buy something for my brother-in-law but I think he is the only one left. Of course, once I mail off the 5 gifts for Janet's family and the two gifts for mom and dad, there will be some bare spots under the tree. But, that's ok...there are still plenty left to wrap. I'm gonna go wrap some more gifts now while I watch the news.
See you tomorrow!