Dear Santa, Toys NOT to Deliver to My House

My boys have Christmas wish lists longer than they are tall.

It seems they want everything that they see in a store or on tv.

While Santa usually does a great job at bringing them enough toys to make my boys happy while still leaving us room to walk through our house, there are a few toys that Santa needs to know are NOT WELCOME in our home.

1. Stompeez

In case you have missed this infomercial, these are slippers that do things when kids walk in them. Like the mouth opens on the alligator, ears pop up on a bunny, etc. But, my boys don't even like to wear shoes, let alone slippers. I could see them wearing these for a few minutes and literally STOMPING around my house, getting them to work. Then, the Stompeez would end up in their toy room, just adding to the clutter. All for the low price of $20. No thanks.

2. Doggie Doo

This thing makes "gassy noises" aka farts until poop plops out of its butt. Playdoh poop, but still. And the winner is the one who cleans up after the dog three time. Seriously? Playing with dog poop is fun? My boys already think farts and poop are hilarious. I'm trying to discourage it, not encourage it.

3. Flush! Game

A game where you have to put things into the toilet before it flushes and gets you all wet. I can see my boys trying to play a version of this with the toilet in their bathroom. Plus, imagine all the potty talk this will encourage. Again: NO THANKS.

4. Socker Boppers

Just in case your kids need more encouragement to beat the snot out of each other. Mine certainly don't.

What is on your list of most undesirable toys this year? 

Christmas Gift for Teachers (or anyone hard to buy for)

'As a former teacher, let me tell you how many "teacher" type gifts I was given. Mugs, ornaments, random knickknacks.


Oh, how cute.


And useless.


Yes, here is where I sound like an ungrateful brat. But, really, unless the teacher is a first-year newbie, they probably already have all of that stuff. I was gifted with all that sort of thing when I was a student teacher and it was cute then, but after that, notsomuch.


I thought it was really nice any time any of my students thought to give me a gift, though.


And some of my favorite gifts didn't cost anything, like the parents who arranged to take my lunch duty for a week as a gift for teacher appreciation week or the mom who wrote me a four page handwritten letter thanking me for all that I did for her daughter.


Awwww.


There were really good gifts that cost some serious money, too. Woohoo to spa gift certificates for a whole day of pampering and a beach bag full of everything you could possibly need for a day at the beach. Most of the bigger gifts were from my whole class and if you can organize something like that, go for it!


Now that I'm a parent, I feel the pressure to come up with a good gift for my boys' teachers.



I don't have lots of cash to throw around, so I have to figure out how to do something nice for not very much money.


Due to all the germ-madness this year, this is what I came up with:

A Germ-Busting Bucket!

Forgive the craptastic job on the tissue paper- I really need to fix that.

I had three teachers to buy for.
Inside each bucket is:

Lysol sanitizing wipes- $2.92 x 3

Big bottle of GermX instant hand sanitizer- $1.98 x 3

Bottle of Chewable Vitamin C- $2 x 3 (found that bargain at Wally World)

Travel-size kleenx-$.99 for a pack of three

5 bags of Yogi brand tea: Cold Season $4.42 for one box, that I split in 3

On the sparkly tag, I wrote "Miss (insert teacher's name here)'s Germ-Busting Bucket."

So, that's three teacher gifts of something that I think they will actually use, for just over $20 total.


Um, not counting the buckets($2.50 each at Wally World- they have a cute lid with a snowflake on it), tissue paper, and the sparkly tags, which bring my total closer to $30. But, by the time that I was shopping for those items, I had picked up the older two from preschool and had three kids shopping with me, so I went for whatever I saw that I thought was reasonable, instead of shopping around for a better deal. But, still, that means $10 per teacher, which isn't bad at all!


Feel free to steal this idea for your kids' teachers!


Click HERE to see the movie-themed basket I made for my boys' teachers as an end-of-the-year gift.


What are you getting for your children's teachers?



This post was originally published on 12/16/09. But, since there were less than 100 of you around then, I figured it was safe to repost.

How Generous Should Santa Be?

I usually get called a grinch by other moms that I know- though it's more behind my back than to my face. And it's in expressions on faces when we talk about what Santa is bringing the kids for Christmas.

My kids have always had a good Christmas. They've never asked if that was all there was or wondered where a certain item was that wasn't under the tree for them. There have only been 3 Christmases so far when someone was old enough to question, but still.

Santa does bring my kids quite a few presents.

Especially whatever is most important to each child.

But, when Monkey was 2: he wanted crayons. At 3: playdoh. At 4: MORE playdoh. Bear hadn't cared until this year and Cub is still too little.

Here are their lists for this year:

And Cub doesn't have a list, though his brothers have told Santa that he wants bath toys and some more sippy cups.

No, we didn't just buy them those things, nor did we just buy crayons or playdoh the other years. They have a lot to open.

It just isn't a lot when I hear what other people buy their kids or when I see the pics from under other people's trees.

My kids already own a million toys, so I don' t feel the need to double what they have every Christmas.

We also do not wrap clothes and put them under the tree. Maybe when the boys are older and there are certain clothes that they really want, we will. For now, we do get clothes at this time of year because of the sales, but we just give them to the kids. They aren't really excited about opening them anyway. All it would do is to make the pile of presents look bigger.

If we do not have the money for something, we do not buy it. No credit card purchases, so that gives us a more definite budget.

Maybe if that budget were larger, the pile of gifts would be larger, I don't know.

Before you feel too bad for them, know that I DO feel that they get enough. It's not just a few things. But, there are not thousands of dollars worth of presents under our tree. You will not find a gift that cost $500 under the tree along with 57 other gifts.

If that is what you do and you have the money to do it, more power to you.

But, it doesn't happen here. Please don't look at my kids with pity. They DO enjoy their Christmas mornings.

And we do other things as a family that they enjoy: their magic Christmas Elf pjs that we let them stay in all day, cookies and punch all day long, lots of cuddling together, watching movies and playing with their toys. It's not all about the presents.

Christmas shouldn't be all about the presents.

Just because my Santa isn't as generous as yours don't make me a grinch.

Btw- blogger is hating me this morning and making everything be center-aligned, even though I keep trying to change it. Sorry!

Teacher Gift That's Actually Useful

'As a former teacher, let me tell you how many "teacher" type gifts I was given. Mugs, ornaments, random knickknacks.

Oh, how cute.

And useless.

Yes, here is where I sound like an ungrateful brat. But, really, unless the teacher is a first-year newbie, they probably already have all of that stuff. I was gifted with all that stuff when I was a student teacher and it was cute then, but after that, notsomuch.

I thought it was really nice any time any of my students thought to give me a gift, though.

And some of my favorite gifts didn't cost anything, like the parents who arranged to take my lunch duty for a week as a gift for teacher appreciation week or the mom who wrote me a four page handwritten letter thanking me for all that I did for her daughter.

Awwww.

There were some really good gifts that cost some serious money, too. Woohoo on spa gift certificates for a whole day of pampering and a beach bag full of everything you could possibly need for a day at the beach.

So now that I'm a parent, I feel the pressure to come up with a good gift for my boys' teachers.

I don't have serious cash to throw around, so I have to figure out how to do something nice for not very much money.

Due to all the germ-madness this year, this is what I came up with:

A Germ-Busting Bucket!

Forgive the craptastic job on the tissue paper- I really need to fix that.

I had three teachers to buy for.
Inside each bucket is:

Lysol sanitizing wipes- $2.92 x 3

Big bottle of GermX instant hand sanitizer- $1.98 x 3

Bottle of Chewable Vitamin C- $2 x 3 (found that bargain at Wally World)

Travel-size kleenx-$.99 for a pack of three

5 bags of Yogi brand tea: Cold Season $4.42 for one box, that I split in 3

On the sparkly tag, I wrote "Miss (insert teacher's name here)'s Germ-Busting Bucket."

So, that's three teacher gifts of something that I think they will actually use, for just over $20 total.

Um, not counting the buckets($2.50 each at Wally World- they have a cute lid with a snowflake on it), tissue paper, and the sparkly tags, which bring my total closer to $30. But, by the time that I was shopping for those items, I had picked up the older two from preschool and had three kids shopping with me, so I went for whatever I saw that I thought was reasonable, instead of shopping around for a better deal.

Feel free to steal this idea for your kids' teachers!

I think this is the wordiest I've been on a Wordful Wednesday.