Parents, if you have school age kids...

What are you giving to the teachers, teaching assistants, childminders etc as gifts this year? What are you spending?


I was hoping to get away with getting a really nice box of chocolates from Thorntons and spending about a tenner each...what are you doing? Time is running out!

Good heavens I couldn't afford to  spend £10 on every teacher at Ethan's nursery, that'd be about £150! I just bought a bottle of wine for his key worker and a box of chocs for the rest to share. I saw a few other parents bringing in boxes of cocolates too.

We have this question every year don't we 

I think this year we will either give cash or a gift voucher to Josh's main teacher person. And give a box of chocolates to everyone to share.

In the past I've given gift vouchers to everyone and one year we gave booze.

Usually I bake some goodies for the staff room, but due to illness haven't had time.  I bought some biscuits for them instead. 
I usually give my 8 year old's aide a bottle of wine.  I need to do that before Friday. 

In addition to the actual teachers, Aillidh has two support assistants in school, so we do gifts for them, too.

I made butterscotch vodka and decanted it into wee bottles for each (I pick up wee decanters throughout the year at charity shops and sterilise them in the oven).

A local art shop sells little candleholders painted with Xmas stuff on them for £3/each, so I got each one of those.

The girls and I will bake cookies and fruit loaf tonight to slice up and bag to give, and we also grow paperwhites and hyacinths to tuck into each bag.

It works out pretty cheap.

They make cards, too.

We gave a gift card to my daughter's teacher (£20 Pizza Express).

I don't mean to burst anyone's bubble... but teachers are notorious for "re-gifting" those lovely £10 boxes of chocolates and what not.....there's too much stuff given at holiday time to teachers and it's serious overload. Lots of it ends up in the staffroom being gobbled up by everyone from the cleaners to the maintenance folk..

I'm a TA but happen to be very chummy with lots of little ones about....I get about 10 boxes of chocolates at Christmas.....and I rarely eat it. Just too much so it gets shuffled along.. so i'd be very careful about overspending!

Most teachers would much prefer a bottle of wine than storebought chocolates or biscuits. 

And I always bake for my kids teachers - i'm doing apple cakes tomorrow for them and they love anything homebaked,especially american baking.

I don't mean to burst anyone's bubble... but teachers are notorious for "re-gifting" those lovely £10 boxes of chocolates and what not.....there's too much stuff given at holiday time to teachers and it's serious overload. Lots of it ends up in the staffroom being gobbled up by everyone from the cleaners to the maintenance folk..

I'm a TA but happen to be very chummy with lots of little ones about....I get about 10 boxes of chocolates at Christmas.....and I rarely eat it. Just too much so it gets shuffled along.. so i'd be very careful about overspending!

Most teachers would much prefer a bottle of wine than storebought chocolates or biscuits. 

This is so true!! When I was teaching I re-gifted all the soaps, bath gels and candles and usually tossed the chocolates or gave them away. The home baked stuff was always very appreciated! And most of all, I loved the gift cards. 

that's what all my teacher friends have been saying, and my sister, who has taught since she left university (she's in her early 40s now).

i love to bake and hope to pass this on to our children.

so we have big fun digging through recipes to decide what we'll bake for the teachers and raffles/fundraisers/tombolas, etc.

i prep and they pour in, help as they can.

today we were doing classmate cards. 

they asked about teacher cards.

told them that was post-tea as special.  need to make those and think them over.

Most teachers would much prefer a bottle of wine than storebought chocolates or biscuits. 

You have no idea how much I wish I could get away with giving a teacher a bottle of wine.  Stupid puritanistic culture.   

I'm a secondary maths teacher and I just have to say that I truly appreciate the chocolates I have received this year!  (Eating one right now in fact.)  I also really enjoy getting cards from the students.  One girl actually took the time to write a personal message inside the card, which was really nice.

I'm a playgroup assistant and I'd say homemade things are appreciated more than a massive tin of quality streets etc.  One year we got marshamallow snowmen one of the boys made with his Mum, they were adorable!

My son has a total of 7 teachers / assistants etc.

We bought his teacher a Gisella Grahm hedgehog, very cute. Chose it because his very first lesson was based on hedgehogs and it had a big impact on my child which means the world to me since I was so worried about him starting school at age 4. All the learning was based around hedgehogs and they even had someone come in with live ones.

For the other teachers, we bought a girly manicure set and the others were given boxed bath and body gifts.

For their dinner lady, I did get a box of chocolates

and for the 2 assistants that come in to help with reading, a crystal bookmark for each.

I realize they must get large amounts of gifts and it's up to them what they choose to do with them. I like to give gifts and my main goal is to show how much we appreciate them.

So much for my bottle of wine idea...apparently the 8 year old has two aides now that assist her.  One in the morning and one in the afternoon. 
And I only have one bottle of wine.
Looks like a mad dash to the grocery tomorrow afternoon. 

We made brownies (with Baker's chocolate squares), fruit loaf (from a 100-year-old recipe!), and decorated sugar cookies.

Mmmm.

I could no way afford a bottle of wine each.  There's like 8 people to do gift bags for.