'twas the days after Christmas

Legos have invaded the dining room. Miniature castles and Star Wars spaceships stand half erected, ready to battle. Comforters and sleeping bags carpet the front room, because who wants to sleep under a canopy on a fluffy feather bed when you can sleep on the floor? Neat piles of toys are stacked in the foyer, ready to be taken upstairs and placed precisely on a shelf. Only, they somehow manage to get knocked down and ransacked before making it up there. Price tags yanked from new clothes litter the bathroom countertop. Nail polish pens compete with a candy making kit on the kitchen table. Purple balled up Hershey's Kiss wrappers glitter in the reflection of the tree's lights. Next to the tree, a box sits half full of decorations packed up. Still under the tree are the untouchables, those presents that can't quite find a home. The lack of snow hasn't put a damper on the thirst for hot chocolate so coffee mugs with globs of melted chocolate dripping down the sides accumulate throughout the day. Mama in her jammies, and the children in theirs, lounge away the days until New Year's.

S.

One Tuesday S. asked me if I was going to miss them over break. I told him no, of course not, I would be much too busy opening presents and having fun. I told him that when he leaves me in June I will probably cry, though.
S. was the last one in the room at the end of the day. His bus was a little late. I was busy trying to get myself organized so I could hurry to meet the other teachers for a little relaxation time. When the bus was called, he grabbed his backpack and hurried out, then popped back into the room. He just stood by the computers, looking at me, smiling. I smiled back, and told him to have a great vacation. He nodded, still smiling, then turned and left. I went back to packing up all my loot, but I had to blink a few times since my eyes were a little watery.

You've got mail

For some reason I was thinking that Christmas is still a ways away. Maybe it's from my college schedule, where I got off weeks before anyone else. I'm on a new schedule now and apparently Christmas is only a few days away. Hm.
I guess this means I won't be sending cards this year. I think it would be nice to send Happy Spring cards instead. I'll put it on my list. This also means that I really need to get over my mother's and start wrapping my presents that are hiding there. She did offer to do it for me but I can't have her doing all my work. Unless she really wants to, and is already wrapping her stuff, so what's the big deal if she just wraps 50 more? Just kidding.
I only got one newsletter card this year. It wasn't one of those cheesy bragging ones, but I don't really remember what it said. I'm to the point now where I don't even read cards unless they're handwritten. It could have the nicest sentiment, using the most beautiful wording, but I don't even read it. I just get bored and skip right over it. All I care about are pictures and personal notes. I got a great card from the Cool One. I think I've read it 50 times already. This is what I love about it: her slightly messy handwriting that says what she has to say is much more important than how pretty it looks on the page, how she jumps right in without all the hi how are you's, how she ends with a 'thank you', which is just silly when we should all be thanking her, and her signature which I can imagine being fought over on ebay. I also love that my messy T looked like an I to her, making my last name much more fun and rhymey than it really is.
I just love a good christmas card.

Woo hoo

Vacation starts today.
I just spent an hour folding up all the tissue and gift bags from my presents so I can reuse them at Christmas. I had to borrow a rolling cart to get everything to my car yesterday. I'm still trying to organize it all. I'm very excited about the gift cards and want to go out right now to shop for books.
This is what I want to do on vacation:
organize my house and give it a good scrubbing
finish shopping and wrapping for x-mas
go back up to my room to get it organized and finish grading
write lesson plans so I can maybe get ahead a few days
read read read
cook, and bake- recipes with long complicated recipes and lots of chopping
get a haircut
I'm off to a good start. So far today I've managed to: brush my teeth, fold up a couple pieces of tissue paper, and play on the computer. I should get to everything else on my list by March.