Anyone Else's School Do the "Gingerbread Shop?"

Yep - only they don't call it that. I think it's just called the Holiday Shop. Something like that. I send each kid with $20 and they normally come home with a gift for everyone, which is a lot of people when looking at extended family :).

We have a holiday shop that is just all holy hell but the kids love it and parents complain if we don't have it, so we suffer through it LOL. All items are $1 and we set a limit of $12 per student. We run it to break even but with loss and breakage we end up eating about $100 in costs each year.

Ours is at a grade 3-5 school of about 900 students. We run one shop in each of the two wings of the school and the kids come during recess. Each class is assigned a day to come so it's less of a mob scene.

Honestly the "gifts" are terrible but the kids really love putting together their list and shopping and having something to give. They get so excited about picking out just the right tacky plastic jewelry for grandma or the right goofy pen for dad or a gift for the cat.

The kids spend a STAGGERING amount of money...I'm not through counting this year's receipts yet but it's close to $7K. Yes, seven thousand cheap, trinkety gifts probably made my small children in a sweatshop somewhere.

We've done shops that had items priced at different amounts and it was such a pain that we went back to the $1 per gift approach to make life easier for everyone.

It's a labor of love for the parents who run it and volunteer to be there helping the kids shop and checking them out. The PTA has tried a few times to not run the shop because it's such a busy time of year but then there's wild protest and disappointment so it gets run anyway.

Our gradeschools do it. My son loved doing his own shopping.

We discussed ahead of time that shopping for himself was not an option. He went with a list of who to buy for. He came home some years with random stuff. I would send him with about $20 and he would buy for about 10 people. Sometimes I just didn't get his reasoning. Till he would explain why he bought certain things. He got my daughter socks because he said her toes were cold. He got my mom a sparkling pen. Because she couldn't find one in her purse and grandma likes sparkles. We loved this program.

i was really sad when my kids' school quit doing it. i guess it was a nightmare for the organizing parents, but my boys just loved it!
the gifts were donated by the parents, so very affordable, and there was some really nice stuff there. the boys had a wonderful time doing their 'own' shopping, and while it was never stuff we'd have picked for ourselves, it was more fun and less stress than taking them to a store. i think i've still got that china dove sitting around somewhere.
:) khairete
S.

Yes, here in our district, it's the Snowflake Gift Shop. When my kids were that age, I never sent them with money for the gift shop. I never had a desire to receive dollar store clutter as a holiday gift. It would still have been MY money that I was giving them, so we would choose a gift for my husband that he'd actually like, and vice versa.
As an elementary school employee, I find the gift shop to be a nightmare when I take my special ed kids, who often want to use the money their parents gave them to buy something they see there for themselves.

It has been a good experience for our kids, but I haven't been involved in it. I can see how it could be a nightmare for the adults involved. It has helped our boys understand budgeting. Our oldest is way beyond this now, but our youngest still participates. He is so excited for us to open our gifts that he has purchased. He uses his own money that he has saved, and spends about $3-$5 on each of us. It's been a nice experience for all of us.

Ours is called the holiday Shop or something. The kids just brought their boxes home this week to save their money. This is the first year they are doing it, but I am looking forward to it. makes it an extra special gift I think because they got to pick it on their own :) and buy it by themself. They are super excited especially my 2nd grader. L. :)

My daughter's school does a Mother's Day Store every year that is a similar idea. Everything is donated and priced at a couple of dollars. Last year my daughter bought me a really nice coffee mug filled with chocolate mints and a daisy to put in the garden.

When I taught in the same school several years ago I was amazed at the quality of most of the things they had donated--brand new books, scented candles, scented lotion, picture frames, plants, nice handmade jewelry. Kids who didn't bring money were given school "dollars" to spend.

I know my daughter as a kindergarten student was really excited to pick something out all on her own for me. Maybe it wasn't the kind of thing I needed or wanted (I already have six dozen coffee cups and I don't like chocolate mints) but it was worth it to see how excited she was to do it and to give her the joy of giving. When I taught there I heard kids who came from disadvantaged homes comment that they had never been able to buy something for their moms before. To me, that makes it all worth it. Sometimes the greatest gifts we moms get are the bouquets of weeds that are given with unabandoned joy and love.

I used to help run it when my kids were in elementary school. It was fun! Especially with the really little kids - they would come in with their list of people and money and notes on it with how much they could spend on each one. It was cute. We would help them choose their gifts and then help them wrap everything.

One of the teacher's parents owned a gift shop of some kind and would donate most of the stuff; where the other stuff came from, I had no idea. The prices would run anywhere from $1.00 up to $25, maybe even more. I can remember we had jewelry, candles, books, ornaments, t-shirts - quite a variety of stuff.

I really enjoyed helping out and the kids really had fun.

Good luck!!

The Student Council does this and called it Santa's Workshop. I helped out with money collection one year and it was rather a nightmare. Kids would miscount and be short, then they would get that sad face on and decide what had to be put back...it kills me inside.

The kids enjoy it, but the quality of items varies a lot. The prices range from $0.50 to about $6.00. We've discovered that the less expensive things actually have more durability. The higher the price, the more likely the thing is to break on the first day. Weird! I wish I could remember the company that supplies the stuff.

The 3rd graders also hold a sale, but they request donations of gently used toys, books and things like that. Those are priced $0.25 to $3. The proceeds of the sale got to buy new toys for Toys for Tots.

@ThePerfectOne - I cam cracking up!

I've actually posted before about how much I personally don't like it. Our school has items from .50 to $20. We have 4 people in our family and on average my kids spend $5 per person. Well that is what "I" tell myself. Its more like dad gets a $1 flashlight. I get $1 jingle bell clip on earrings. Sister gets a $8 webkins, ds buys himself a $10 knock off hotwheels set. Then they complain because I only sent him w $20 for the family while other people sent $20 per person.
And talk about levels of hell try getting a first grader to choose between the red or green jingle bell earrings for mom and the tears!!! Oh man the tears.
When I was a child people donated handmade items like ornaments etc I think I would like that better. But 2ho has time for that?