I taught the 6th grade for almost 30 yrs. in the same school...each year, beginning in the early part of Nov. I "encouraged"(though some teachers good naturely said I harrassed them to participate...lol) every class from Pre-K to 8th gr. to make something to sell for my annual Christmas Craft Bazaar...the 1st couple of yrs. some teachers didn't want to make anything with their class because they said they(the teachers) weren't artistic...I used my free class periods to go to their class and teach both the class AND the teacher something to make...after collecting, pricing, setting up our little "store" my class was in charge...they ran the store, collected the money, kept inventory, etc. They were the ones to escort kids from other classes to come and shop in our store...The week before Christmas vacation, I took some volunteers to the grocery store with our hard earned money and bought groceries...we made up food baskets for needy families in our township...it was a poor district, and I worried about all of the kids that were getting free breakfasts/lunches daily that might not have enough food at home during the Christmas break...after my class made up the Christmas food bags(which equaled a week's worth of groceries for each family including a canned ham also), the school nurse and I delivered the baskets so that no one would be embarrassed or have other kids know they were receiving a basket...it was amazing to me that some of the neediest kids were the ones to help the most...it taught my students and the students in the whole school, the gift of giving from their heart...now after being retired for almost 10 yrs., it is that Christmas tradition that I miss the most...and still, when I see one of my former students, or the teachers I used to work with, they remember how our little Christmas Craft Fair grew from 5 Christmas food baskets to 50!!! It was a lot of work, but it was worth it...Naomi