Juffo_Wup

GS-12

Fuckin-A I need to go marry that hot customs agent that let me in at Port Canaveral.

As the son of an elementary school teacher (mostly kindergarten, now retired) I don't let my wife buy christmas ornaments and huge boxes of candy and body lotions etc. for our daughters teacher at Christmas time or the teachers birthday. Let me tell you all who don't know, teachers who are lucky enough to get gifts (usually pre school and elementary school only) get so much of the same stuff it becomes almost useless. And you really can't re-gift "best teacher ever" christmas ornaments without people knowing what you're up to. Teachers don't get paid much at all, give them something they can really use like a Walmart gift card or Target gift card. It's basically as good as cash without it being actual cash so it's still "gifty". It may feel generic, but trust me it will be very much appreciated. Just put it in a nice envelope with a nice thought out hand written note about how much they mean to you and that will be the best gift ever. Include something like "<name of child> says you should spend it on dinosaurs and marsh-mellows" or whatever.

I remember every Christmas helping my mom open all of her gifts at the dining room table and wondering what we were going to do with another dozen ornaments and 8 boxes of Whitman chocolates (well of course we'll eat a few).

And don't forget that most teachers spend their own hard earned money on stuff for their classrooms as the schools will not pay for it. My mom did it every year. If she needed certain supplies for a project for her kids that the school would not provide she would buy them herself. So that walmart gift card directly or indirectly may not even be going 100% towards just the teacher in the long run.

[Edit] Sorry for the "As the son of an elementary..." and "Let me tell you all" I just read that and it sounds like I'm some know it all. Trying to write fast and it came out bossy or something. I love teachers and just wanted to get this message out there. It would be so cool for them to get 20 gift certificates at Christmas even if some are just $5 or $10 instead of a bunch of stuff they really can't use. Also I'm not knocking what OP got edible arrangements are awesome and not a common gift. That and the gift card obviously make it something above and beyond what is normally considered a typical teacher gift.

Yeah that's a generalization I'm gonna have to totally disagree with. It's all about the particular people you deal with, /u/wintercast clearly had a different experience with catholic school than what I've ever heard of. My wife was taught nothing about sex ed or evolution at her catholic school. Never heard of a catholic school teaching evolution, not saying one hasn't but that's just not typical that's the exception.

[Edit] After reading more comments on here there apparently must be more Catholic schools that do focus on real science and education. Perhaps those are larger than the schools I've ever seen. Catholic schools I've know via second hand (known someone who went there) were all in smaller towns in the south. That's probably got a lot to do with the difference.

Had a friend who's since moved away and we don't see each other anymore, but he has 6 daughters (all his and he named them all). All of their names start with J. He got a dog, name the dog after himself.