It is almost Thanksgiving and that means lots of things are going on. It means lots of cooking and cleaning. It means shopping at midnight (for us crazy people). It means I'm spending hours on the piano learning the new Christmas music. It means we're getting ready for company, well, this year it does and we are super-excited about that. It also means something different in our house. It means the classroom is transformed into a lovely dining room again - for the holidays.
We don't have lots of extra room around this place. The house was nice and big when we moved in with a 2-year old and an infant. Now that we have a 9-year old, a 7-year old, a 5-year old and two 4-year olds, space is limited. Adding homeschool space is tricky so we move the dining table out to the garage and convert the dining room into school space for our fall semester and again, in the spring. We enjoy have a dining room for our Holiday break and our summer break.
To accomodate having no school space for the holidays, I plan out our school year to reach a specific goal before Thanksgiving (this year it was to finish day 100 before our break). So, with our second quarter completely finished, we can enjoy a long holiday break and I can enjoy the holidays too instead of trying to stack the extra baking, gift-wrapping, and holiday events on top of our already busy school schedule. Yes, we take from Thanksgiving until after New Year's for our Holiday break and it is wonderful.
It is also a great time for me to plan out our school activities for the upcoming semester. I enjoy this time so much. It is a time for 'teacher-renewal'. I get to plan out everything we'll be doing for the rest of the year and collect the materials, and plan the activities, and prepare the students' books and papers in preparation for when we start school again. I always begin our 3rd quarter feeling excited about what we're doing and the kids are always excited about going back to school too.
During our long holiday break, we also celebrate our anniversary. Who gets married 10 days before Christmas? A teacher on her Christmas break. Joey will be taking a week's vacation and be home to celebrate our anniversary and enjoy some Christmas and winter activities with all of us. It will be a wonderful way to celebrate our 10 wonderful years of marriage, the blessing of being a family, and enjoy the celebration of our Lord's birth. What a wonderful way to be renewed. Much better than the spa weekend, right? So for all of you weary teachers, mommies, homeschoolers, and frazzled Christmas planners. . . . Set aside some time this year to enjoy the season not just survive the season and renew yourself in the Lord (see previous post) so you can start the new year with anticipation and not exhaustion.
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