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Home > Administrator's Desk Channel > Administrator's Desk Archive >Administrators Desk Columnists > Diane Hodges Archive > Diane Hodges Article DIANE HODGES Looking Forward To Monday Morning

Holiday Caring

 

 Looking Forward
To Monday Morning

 

SHOEBOX GIFTS

 

Collect empty shoeboxes and attach a note to each box with the age and gender of a child (for example, 3-year old, girl). Give interested staff members one of these boxes and ask them to fill it with items that children need and want such as toys, treats, socks, toothbrushes, and so on. The shoeboxes can also be decorated. On a designated date, collect the boxes and deliver them to needy families or take them to an agency or community group for delivery.

[content block] COOKIE EXCHANGE

Finding time for holiday baking is often difficult, especially if you hope to cook a wide variety of different treats. Make it easy on your staff by organizing a Cookie Exchange for all who want to participate. Have each participant bake 5 dozen cookies. Set a deadline and meet on that date for a special social time where the cookies are displayed. Each staff members can select 5 dozen assorted cookies to take home. You might even ask each person to provide enough copies of the cookie recipe he or she made to share with others in the group.

Although the participants of this activity are typically female staff members, the men at Arbor Heights Elementary School in Seattle turned this into a "guys only" event. What started as a lark became a tradition. The male staff members each bake a dozen cookies, decorate the plates, and prepare for a fun-filled exchange. They established several rules including
  • ready-baked cookies are not allowed,
  • spouses and significant others may not assist, and
  • don't skimp on the ingredients (use butter).
    The actual exchange includes playing their favorite music and swapping tales of baking and tribulations.

Note: It's best not to bake the cookies the night before the exchange just in case there are more tribulations than successes.

GRIN AND SHARE IT

A lady was picking through the frozen turkeys at the grocery store, but she was unable to find one big enough for her family. She asked a stock boy, "Do these turkeys get any bigger?"

The stock boy replied politely, "No, ma'am, they're as big as they're going to get."

Find more smiles, chuckles, and grins in my books Laugh Lines for Educators and Grin and Share It!

Drive your staff happy!
Diane

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