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Tuesday, December 27, 2016

A Festivus for the Rest of Us!

These next couple days I will be recapping our long Christmas weekend! Today, I will start with December 23rd!


Christmas is my favorite holiday, and I truly enjoy the days leading up to Christmas just as much as I enjoy Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!

This year, December 23rd (Festivus!) was pretty hectic! First of all, WE HAD SCHOOL THAT DAY! The students were dismissed at noon and teachers were dismissed at 1pm, but still... it was an added layer of stress!

(Believe me, I understand that as a teacher I am extremely lucky to not have to work on major holidays and it sounds ungrateful to say it was stressful to work on the 23rd!)

I only taught a couple classes that morning, and everything was very festive. I pulled up a fireplace on Youtube and displayed it on the Smartboard. I turned the lights out when the students came in the room and told them to sit by the "fire" and get warm and cozy!



Then we read The Jolly Christmas Postman, which has nothing to do with music, but I didn't care! It was a special day and I wanted to read it to the students.



Most of the teachers made breakfast for their classroom. The entire school smelled like pancakes and syrup! A lot of teachers were dressed in Christmas garb too!

A first grade teacher, who would like to remain anonymous, said of her pajamas, "It looks like Christmas threw up on me!"

My friend Katrina, our phys ed teacher, won the award for the ugliest sweater!

I wore my red fish net tights for the very first time. Can you believe I have had them for years and hadn't yet come up with the perfect occasion to wear them?

After the students were dismissed, our faculty went up to the middle school to attend a retirement party for our ESL teacher. It was fun to socialize and say goodbye to all of my friends before Christmas break. I don't mention it on my blog a lot, but I truly LOVE the people I work with! They are not just my "work friends" they are MY FRIENDS.

When I got home from work, I had a list of last minute things I had to do to be ready for the whirlwind of the next couple days. This was actually the first moment I started to feel some CHRISTMAS STRESS. I often tell you how Christmas doesn't stress me out because I love it so much, but I will be honest, I felt a twinge of stress and apprehension this afternoon!

Around 3pm, Paul and I headed to Millersburg to visit my Grandma and go out to dinner for my brother's birthday.

My main goal when we visited my grandma was to convince her to come to my parent's house on Christmas Day. Luckily, she agreed to come! We wrote it on her calendar so she wouldn't forget, and then Paul and I sang her Silent Night, which made her cry!

Then we went out to eat at Swing with my parents and my brother Julian and his girlfriend, Amy. When we walked in the restaurant, we saw my high school gym teacher and my first grade teacher having dinner! It was so fun to catch up with them!

It was lovely to be able to celebrate my brother's birthday with him. We hadn't been able to do that as a family for the past several years. We ate good food and then aired our grievances, a la Festivus tradition. 



You know what my grievance is? When people roll up the paper from their straws into little balls. I can't stand to look at those!

After dinner, we got some pictures on the square in Millersburg, which is right across from my parent's house- the house I grew up in. We got some shots on the gazebo and in front of the huge lighted tree in the park.





It was a great day! I was happy to be able to see Millersburg all lit up for Christmas!

Oh, when we were at my mom and dad's house, look what I saw on their refrigerator. Isn't it awesome?


Did you do anything special on the 23rd?
Teachers, when was your last day before break?
Have you heard of Festivus or are you a bit confused?
Air one of your grievances in the comments!

18 comments:

  1. Looks like a wonderful week for you!

    Happy Festivus!

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  2. I love that picture & writing you found on your parent's fridge! So sweet. What a great day! Look at all those lights (my favorite part of the holiday). On the 23rd I had to stay home :( because I ordered a new phone and had to be here to sign for the delivery. I was able to watch one of my favorite holiday movies, though (Love, Actually). My (latest) grievance: sales people that try to up-sell or over-sell you products. I had gone in to buy a phone and she was all about trying to sell me accessories, modules and even On-Star. I was having none of it. Good Lord, woman..."no means no". Sigh.

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    1. That is frustrating when they keep trying to get you to buy stuff. Especially when they make you feel like you need it when you actually don't. I send Paul to the Verizon store to buy my phone because I don't know *anything* and would probably walk out with On Star hahahah!

      I'm glad you got to watch your favorite holiday movie even though you were stuck at home. I have It's A Wonderful Life on the DVR right now. I have actually never seen it even though I went to college in Jimmy Stewart's hometown (Indiana, PA) and he is SUCH a big deal there.

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  3. Aww, sorry that working on Friday stressed you out. I always find those half days to be the most fun!

    The photos in the gazebo are gorgeous! I had to think about what I did on the 23rd cus at this point it seems so long ago...lol. I know I was excited to get to the gym early and then a run with my sister since it was nice out. I suppose I ought to do a weekend/holiday recap since I hadn't done one this week! Enjoy the rest of your week Megan!

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    1. The half day was fun because it was such a "Nothing" day you know? But having less time at home to prepare is what stressed me.

      I would love to read a holiday recap! Lots of pics of Baylee, please! And Scott!

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  4. That Gazebo pic is awesome! It looks like you had a fun day celebrating Christmas with your coworkers too. I like your work attire much better than the crazy Christmas tree but get it that some people love dressing up (I'm not one of them). It's crazy ya'll had to work, even I was off work on Dec. 23 and I'm rarely off. Our schools here have been out since the 16th.

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    1. Wow what a long Christmas break for SC students. How late do they go into the summer? I would have worn the Christmas tree sweater *but* I am not creative like that at all so I never would have gone through the trouble of actually making it!

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  5. Love Festivus!! But really I'm shocked, this was the first opportunity you've had to wear red fish nets? ;) LOL They do look pretty awesome with the red boots. That is so fun that the teachers made breakfast at school. I'm sure the kids were so super excited (wound up!!) after that.

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    1. Haha yup, can you believe it!? ;) Yes the kids were wound up but that's okay... all they were doing was watching movies and playing games anyway!

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  6. My biggest grievance is how spoiled kids are these days when it comes to Christmas gifts. I actually can't even talk about it or I get too angry that it affects my overall vibes. So I'm going to focus on cool things like red fishnets and the smell of pancakes and syrup.

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    1. Ugh I am sorry you are experiencing spoiled kids! (I'm not insinuating it's your kids, because you didn't specify!) My nieces did get a little grumpy during Christmas because it was hard to take turns with gifts and then the one wanted the other's gifts... ugh. They're 2 and 4 though so I guess that is to be expected!

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  7. I love your red fishnet tights!! they are so awesome!! I'm not allowed to wear fishnets at work...

    What great pictures of your hometown!

    Grievances? mmm... Roger forgot to pack his book pack when we went to my parents, the book pack with his meds and shaving stuff. So I had to drive back to MBurg on the 23rd with my sister. We got back to my parents at 2 am. But we spend the drive up gossiping and singing very loudly, so it wasn't a complete waste of driving.

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    1. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to wear fishnets to work either! Hahaha!

      OMG I would have died if I had to drive all the way back here!! You are a NICE wife. Why didn't HE drive back?

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  8. I love your faux fireplace!! I'll have to steal that idea if I ever go back to teaching.

    You looked super cute in your red tights!!!

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  9. I loooooooooove your red tights and your red boots! Like really love them! Love you in them!

    All of your family photos are so sweet! <3

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  10. Before we let out for break, one of our 4th grade teachers put on the "fire" too and had hot cocoa for her kids! We do the Polar Express for kindergarteners. They come to school in PJs and watch the movie and we make the entire hallway and all the classrooms look like a train. We also had a "holiday clothes" dress down day so the kids and teachers could wear their ugly sweaters etc haha.

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    1. Our K kids do that too! I get pissed when they're in PJs cause they act like animals. I'm soooooo not into the little ones. ;)

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