12 Days Before Holiday/Winter Break

The holiday season covers all kinds of emotions, happiness, excitement, stress, anxiety and for the 2nd year in a row to pump up the staff for the exciting break, we did the 12 days before Christmas (JYJ style).  Several teachers and myself thought of this and we also had help and support from our PTA.  So here's what we did (these are pics from last year & I apologize that I don't have pictures for all the days but you'll get the gist):

-Day 1:  Turtledove Treat (Turtle and Dove Candy w/ a little note)

-Day 2: Guess the number of (holiday) M&M's in a jar (the PTA) counted and put the jar in the staff mail room and the winner got the candy.

-Day 3:  Carols in the Cafe, a Holiday playlist on the iPod that was played using an iPod speaker during lunch.

-Day 4:  Holiday Photo Booth, we used a corner wall on the main hallway and decorated with props (staff brought in the props).  There's a staff member who does photography as a hobby and volunteered to take the pictures (we also used our phones).

-Day 5: Staff  lunch and coverage for lunch duty (sponsored by PTA)

-Day 6:  Cookie Exchange (staff brought in cookies/sweets to share)

-Day 7:  Flannel Friday, wear your flannel/holiday PJ's and enjoy some hot chocolate (sponsored by our PTA).

-Day 8:  Find the hidden holiday ornaments, PTA put 5 ornaments throughout the school and if you found one you won a prize.

-Day 9:  Give and receive a snowman of appreciation (we assigned everyone a person to write a nice note to and each person also received a Hershey's Hug and Kiss candy).  The snowmen were cut using a dye-cutter and some people got creative and added more to their snowman (see mine below).  For the person that I wrote a snowman to, I knew that they liked diet soda so I put a dollar with the snowman to buy a drink from the drink machine. 

-Day 10: Holiday headgear day

-Day 11:  Pin the nose on Rudolph (like pin the tail on the donkey, blindfold and all), the top 3 people closest to his nose win a prize. 

-Day 12: Tacky Holiday Sweater Day

The "countdown" to holiday break was even more interesting by adding fun events for staff.  This year we're doing it again and adding a few different things.  What things does your school do to celebrate staff for the holiday/winter break?  Please share.


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