Who's Doing the Christmas Break Happy Dance With Me?

I am (almost) officially on Christmas break!  Today was the last day for students, but the teachers have to go in tomorrow for a work day and short inservice.  Thankfully, I should be done with my day at school by 2 p.m. and can get my break rolling soon after!  

I don't know about your schools, but my school has a lot of Christmas traditions.  Our new principal was a teacher in our building for years, so it's been nice that he's carried on most of those traditions this year.  One such tradition is to do a Christmas carol sing along on the last day before break.  We ended up doing a lovely rendition of "The 12 Days of Christmas" in which many of the teachers acted out each of the parts.  I must say I was a pretty awesome "7 swans a swimming"!  

Our staff hasn't really been very much into having a big Christmas party together for several years, so this year our social committee voted to hold our get together after school at the school.  We did an "Amazing Race" type game in teams where we had to solve clues and do different activities around the building.  I'll admit I was a little apprehensive at first, but it ended up being a lot of fun.  It was hilarious seeing all of our teachers wildly running through the hallways decked out in special Christmas headbands for our teams.  (We were the peppermint team!)  I think one of the funniest parts was when the Latchkey kids came out in the hallway to see what all of the running and screaming was about...  They were quite entertained by the masses of teachers in decorative headbands (peppermints, trees, gingerbread men, reindeer) literally running through the hallways.  One of my former students cried out, 

"I didn't know teachers could have so much fun!"  LOL

I'm hoping to get a fair about of school stuff accomplished over the break.  My goal is to try to have my act together and set a good example for my student teacher who starts back with us in January.  I've been getting all sorts of cool ideas from Pinterest and I think this may finally be my opportunity to get some of these projects accomplished.  I usually go into the school one day over break to do some cleaning and organizing before the new semester starts.  

Speaking of...  I'll share a quick story about that with you...

Two winter breaks ago I went in on a Sunday morning to work in my classroom.  I noticed that there were some tools and other things scattered about the building, which was odd, but I figured maintenance was working on stuff and was coming back to finish.  A couple other staff members came in to work later that day and also found these things odd.  We found out the next day that our school had actually been broken into that Sunday morning and that from what they could tell from the security cameras it was when I arrived that they were scared off!  Yes, I was alone in the building with armed burglars present! I just have to say thanks to the Lord for keeping me safe that day!

Okay, enough with my ramblings...  I leave you with my current favorite Christmas song:

"All I Want For Christmas Is You"

Justin Bieber and Mariah Carey

Does anyone else find it slightly creepy that she's acting all sexy and yet is old enough to be his mom?  Despite the slight creepy factor, I love this new version of this song!  Yes, I'm a 26 year old Justin Bieber fan.  Blame it on the fact that I have a 10 year old brother and that I hang out with 3rd graders all day...