To Give Or Not To Give

Can I get an, "Amen!" for two weeks off for Christmas break?  I am so excited to have my kids home and Hubby on vacation for two whole weeks! I don't even have my Christmas shopping done, but I"m not even bothered by that.

I'll be the first to admit the last couple of weeks haven't gone so well at the girls school and we all need a break. Between a teacher saying that email communication was going into her junk folder and then saying we didn't let her know about orthodontist appointments*.   And another teacher still spelling my other kids name wrong**.  

This has been sort of a roller coaster school year. But when it came to giving Christmas gifts to the teachers I didn't hesitate. It's something we enjoy giving as a family.  The (homemade peppermint sugar scrub) gifts were something the girls and I could make together instead of just throwing another candle at them or something they didn't need***. 

Then my older daughter mentioned that the teacher wrote thank you notes to some of the kids and not all of them. Guess which column she fell under? First, I'm a little surprised that she noticed. Second, I had to explain that we don't do those things for the thank you notes.  Although it would have been nice to receive an acknowledgement.

God, it took all I had not to call the teacher a few names to my daughter and to mention how rude it was for the teacher to write thank you notes to the chosen.

I did think to say that maybe the teacher had a lot of gifts and didn't have enough thank you notes. If that were the case would it take anything to just write a thank you on a piece of notebook/construction paper?

The feeling was all too familiar. Recently we dropped a nice chunk of change on a birthday lunch and the gift was a super duper cute mini photo album with updated pictures of my kids. My girls gave the recipient two things they found around the house. My kids were the ones that got thank you notes. Not Hubby and I. I had to swallow the fact that I didn't do it for the thank you note. Will we be doing it again?

Sometimes it seems so stupid to get wrapped around the axle over a note. God knows I'm no Emily Post or Miss Manners.  I can't control how others behave. I can only control my own behavior.

May I remember to rejoice in the giving and not the gift. May I do it because I want to and not what I get in return.


*and taking it out on my kid by getting mad and not speaking to her and saying that we didn't let her know.
**it's just another "e" at the end. That's it. The kicker is that the teacher has the same first name.
***not that they NEED peppermint sugar scrub, but it was something we enjoyed making and wanted to share.