Carianne's blog prompted me to blog. I have fond memories of school Christmas parties, too. I was Annemarie's room mother when she was in 2nd grade. It was the first and last time I did that. One Christmas party cured me of ever wanting to be room mom again.
That year it was decided that all of the classes on each grade level would do the exact same things for their parties. So the second grade party was planned by a committee of incompetent mothers-all trying to look like the perfect, supermom. No one heard anything I said. The Christmas "craft" was to ice a waffle cone with green icing and put candies on it. They asked moms to bring store bought icing colored green. The icing was runny and guaranteed to permanently dye everything it touched green. Being runny, of course, it didn't stick to anything but clothes and hands.
Annemarie's teacher had just quit teaching because she was very sick with Aids and the new teacher came that day. The main sounds heard during the party were fighting and crying.
For the gift exchange all of the kids were supposed to bring books. One book was an adult story made to look like a childrens book. In subsequent years, the school ruled that only school supplies could be brought for the gift exchange.
Meanwhile, in Julianna's kindergarten class the brilliant mothers had decided the children would paint ornaments for the tree. Julianna painted her bear ornament blue. The problem was someone brought oil paints for the kindergartners to use. Of course, it didn't dry for days and got all over the kids and their clothes and then the mother's hands and clothes and it was guaranteed not to be washable. Because it was not dry the ornament was ruined by the time we go it home.
In subsequent years I attended the parties for the last few minutes and participated as little as possible.
I made up for not being room mother by volunteering in the school in other ways. I would tutor, assist in the classroom, and do things like make copies and do bulletin boards. I found this was a lot better because I would see my kids at school on a regular basis and I got to know their teachers a lot better.
The pictures are of my kids making gingerbread houses-I don't think I have any of the school parties.
