I love everything about the season. Speaking of Christmas at school, for years I ran and put on the Christmas Assembly at the school I taught at. One of the Physed teachers putting on a show that past grads would come back to every year, was amazing. We gave away PS3's, Ipads and Xbox's. The students were talented and pretty damn funny. Besides coaching 2 teams, I ran the school council and we would have Christmas Door Decorating Contests and toy mountains where we donated to a local battered woman's shelter. I loved it all and it is something that I miss. The best part my best friend, best man and former martial arts partner also taught at my school and we put the show on together. Starting December 1st we would have early morning practices. The morning of the show we would all arrive at 5:30am and go through our final 2 practices. My student council members would do their secret Santa exchange after the show. It was such fun times.
I cherish those memories as well as the crazy gifts my students gave me. Over the years I was given 3 pair of Jordans, 2 pairs of Lebrons, a pair of Iverson's and an ipod touch. It became a bloody competition between my home rooms classes and they would try to out do previous years. I was always blown away and moved by their generosity. I never asked for anything and actual asked them not to give me gifts, however they were not listening to me when it came to that. So many other teachers were jealous about it, but when you spend countless hours with these students, giving up weeks of your home life to go to Leadership Camp, Band Camp and Boys Athletic Camp and coaching 2 teams, you form strong bonds with your kids and their parents. I became good friends with a few sets of parents.
So, Christmas and school have given me great memories that i hold close all these years later. I miss teaching. It has been 10 years since my accident when my career was stolen from me.
Which leads me to Christmas with my family. We start Christmas on November 1st in the Stewart household. I would start earlier, however my wife pumps the breaks on that. It is even more joyful in our home now that we have children. We have a 6 year old girls and 3 year old boy so we are right in the midst of those magical years where they still look into the night skies to see if reindeers can actually fly. I love the season and as you can see I can extend the season as much as I can.
99 more days until Christmas.
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