Click on pictures for a larger view…especially this one.

What?  It’s over?  ALREADY?  But Lori, you are saying, you’ve only been blathering about Santa Shop (formally known as Gifts Galore at our school, but nicknamed The Gifts War by Sara when she was too young to pronounce “Galore”) for 13 months.  It’s possible I blogged about here.  Maybe a lot was said here. I only made short mention of it here, and here, and over there.  And of course, I said goodbye to all of you here, as I stepped away from the blog to finish up a dizzying array of tasks.  That was exactly one month ago, or in Lori-time, 5 seconds ago.

My favorite decoration

So how did it go?  So many of you have been so kind as to email and facebook me, and ask me with great anticipation for pictures.  And hey, I don’t want to brag.  It’s not right.  It’s not proper.  But….OH, OK, let me just say it….GIFTS GALORE ROCKED THE PARTY THAT ROCKED THE PARTY THAT MADE YOU WANT TO SCREAM…WHAT A WILD SUCCESS!!! 13 months of shopping and prepping, 2 days of decorating, 2 days of “The Shop”, upwards of probably 90 volunteers, 410 student shoppers, and ONE FREAK SNOWSTORM…and just like that, we won The Gifts War.

The front windows that greeted the students into The Meeting Center

I’ve had a little over 12 hours of sleep since Sunday night, so forgive my lack of editing and inability to type a coherent sentence.  A huge thanks to the many emails and phone calls I’ve received today.  It’s been a flurry of “congratulations” and “wildly successful”, and one capitalized “FANTASTIC”, along with the memory of hugs and gleeful screams of the students.  Oh heavens, I wished I could have videotaped the 3rd graders and played it back over and over again.  And the 8th graders.  And of course those excited 4th graders who found out that even if you get to school really late in a snowstorm, Ms. Lori will make sure you get to pick from the best of gifts, even if she has to escort you into the shop one by one.  There was the grateful 6th graders who thought they’d miss out because they had a field trip, but you know I worked that out.  I won’t lie, I tried to avoid the 7th graders, which is good advice….tough age.  Just kidding, they were nice too.  No seriously, I hid in the hall when they shopped.  The sweetie kindergarten and first graders would have made your heart melt, and don’t even get me started on preschool.  They were a little clueless, but with our “Early Childhood” Shopper Helper team, they found great gifts for Grandmas and Daddies and siblings and pets, etc. I wish you could have heard the kids walking by and saying, “It’s Magical!”, and “Christmas came to school!”, and of course, the funny parent who commented, “And we wonder why our kids are over-achievers”.  That’s fair.  The parents tend to get as excited about putting on this show as do the kids.

The Gift Tab Writing Table…those presents had batteries inside and the fairies SPIN!

I didn’t talk Sara out of the very bright and cheerful (and jumbo) blown glass Hello Kitty ornament for Grandmommy, and really, I didn’t want to, because it was such a sweet and heartfelt present.  Grandma lucked out and got a polka-dotted umbrella.  Kelly got a Tinkerbell tea set and a set of Pretty Ponies.  What did I get, you ask?  The woman who put the 800+ volunteer hours for her daughter’s school?  I got a sweet little box of ornaments, and a request from Sara to finish up the Christmas decorating.  That’s what we call “IRONY”.  Or Karma…not sure which. For Daddy she chose a soccer ball (at his request so they could play together, thereby giving up the chance to get the $30 Eddie Bauer Weather Monitor for $5…he should be sainted), and for herself?  A Barbie of course.  She hasn’t let go of it in 24 hours.

1 of 2 countdown clocks that decorated the school lobbies

I won’t make a mess of your screen unless you click the “Read More”, where you can catch many glimpes of the tables and the wonderful things available for $5 and under.  The average purchase price ended up around the $2.31 mark.  Not bad….3777 gifts for $9000.  Well, $9009.  I almost landed in budget; nobody’s perfect.  Very soon I will do a full detail post on how one pull’s off a stunt like this…but first I’ll need to get more than 2 hours of sleep.  SO, what could you buy at a Gifts Galore?  WELL, let me give you a peek (and EVERYBODY wants a peek…the whole school stopped by Friday to get a peek)….

On one side of the fireplace, you may have found both oversized and regular sized stuffed animals, board games, a scooter, a decorate your own snowman kit…

On the other side, you could have purchased a Colts pennant, a glass chess set, a High School Musical DVD game, and additional plush animals and a different sets of board games.

On the bookshelves in the middle of the fireplace (which was once a Keebler Cracker display at a grocery store that I convinced a manager to give me a year ago and I then convinced/begged someone to paint for me), you could have purchased more stuffed animals (if it seems like a lot, there were none left at the end of shopping), a variety of Disney princess items, Hannah Montana camping chairs, and a bucket filled with games that involved suction balls and hand held paddles.

The remaining side of the fireplace contained an entire shelf filled with Webkinz, a shelf of polka-dotted umbrellas, neck pillows, oversized fancy luggage tags and leather passport covers for Moms who travels, or a yard sign that reads “North Pole”.  I won’t lie, I have one.  I love this yard sign.

For Moms you might have bought a Nicolas Sparks book, a Williams Sonoma cookbook, a Mrs. Field’s cookbook, a variety of bath kits, spa kits, lipstick holders, and toiletry travel bags.

You might have bought your Mom an Eddie Bauer water bottle, a Nike head band, some makeup, or a digital camera that hooks on her keychain.  Maybe a scrapbook, or a hand held neck massager, or an ornament stuffed with brightly colored socks.

If your Mom likes jewelry, we had some of that too.  Along with a Dancing with the Stars board game.

We had holiday socks, santa hats, Colts Santa hats, IU Santa hats, and a vast array of hats, mittens, and sets of scarves and berets, and holiday ties that play music.  Remember, at all times, shop like a 10 year old.  You aren’t buying what YOU WOULD buy.  YOU are an adult.  You are buying what you think a 10 year old would want to buy for a parent, grandparent, sibling, or friend.  It’s tricky.  Go for loud, large, and bright.

Maybe you are looking for holiday themed jewelry, because we had lots of that too.  Some reusable shopping bags, brightly colored bangles inside ornaments for the teenage sister, small princess purses, and a aprons that read, “Kiss the Cook”.  Kiss the Chairperson and hand her a cup of coffee.  She could use some.  We had coffee, but because the first day was met with a snowstorm, we also had spiced cider, chocolate bark cookies, sugar cookies (thank you to Greg’s Great Grandma for an AMAZING recipe, and to Grandmommy for teaching me how to make it), Grandmommy’s famous crumb cakes, bags of chips and peanuts and M&M’s…gotta keep those volunteers energized!

But what about Dads, you ask?  We had poker sets, more cameras, Eddie Bauer weather monitors, Adidas head bands, and those chopstick sets flew off the tables.

The themed boxer shorts (Wii, Xbox, Guitar Hero, etc) sold like fire, along with the wrap around earmuffs, the Dopp kits, the stopwatches and Converse scarves.  The Converse hats were gone in moments.

That’s not enough selection?  Of course it’s not!  What’s a Gifts Galore without the famous red boxes?  We get these at Target, 7am, December 26th, year after year.  Every year we double the number, and every year, they sell in seconds.  There are travel mugs, trunk organizers, iPod speakers, electronic Sudoku games, travel door alarms, black jack keychains, umbrellas, computerized travel mugs (don’t ask…I’m not sure what they do), laser pointers, barbecue forks, glovebox tool kits, and every other “Dad” gadget-y gift you can imagine.  And there, shining on the left, is one oversized Colts reusable water bottle.  I had a total of 4, and when you read “how I did it”, you’ll learn how to get gifts that never go on sale for $5.  It’s a neat trick…and it’s not at all illegal, I promise.  Or donated.  Because apparently the Colts can’t lose, which means every week Colts items go up by 20%.  Ain’t no store in this city gonna donate a Colts item.

We had camping chairs; large, double-armed camping chairs.  Bought at an end of the summer sale at Menard’s.  I bought 16, but I wish I’d had even more. As a general rule, we don’t sell summer stuff at a winter shop.  Kids don’t want pool toys in December.  But camping chairs are another story indeed.

We also had Dad books, such as Michael Connelly, James Patterson, and sets of Jumbo Sudokus.  These are especially good books for middle school boys as well.  The books were a risk I took this year, and I would certainly do it again in the Dads and Teen boys section.  The girls weren’t all over the books.  Kids are fickle, hard to say why they buy what they buy.

I could have tripled the number of “Indognito” books (dogs in costumes), and I would have sold them all.  Twilight behind the scenes movie guides?  Didn’t sell a single one.  Go figure.  Every year there is that one thing that you’re sure will sell like mad, and it doesn’t move.  As it turns out, the kids already have it.  Apparently they also have Mr. Potato Heads, because I didn’t sell those either.  So glad I killed myself searching for Mr. Potato Heads under $5.

For boys, you might have found hot wheel sets, games such as dominoes, cribbage, and mancala.  Oversized blow up arm chairs, tonka trucks, walkie talkies, and a pretty large selection of electronic hand held games (including a Guitar Hero handheld game…will share that secret later…nope, not stolen or donated).  Lots and lots of 20 question hand held electronic games.  I’m not sure how I missed a picture of my Darth Vader Light Saber, but I had those too.  For a second, and then they were purchased.

Boys like planes, and even though this picture cut them out, I had about 20 different Thomas the Train pieces.

Boys really, really like sleds.

The lacrosse sets went quickly, but not as quickly as the footballs, basketballs and soccer balls.  Watching those fly gave me whiplash.

Wish I would have bought more electronic dart boards.  On second thought, I found them on a back corner of an old Target, on clearance for $3.50.  I think I bought all they had.

I was especially proud of my Tinkerbell Doll and Cast display.  Getting these dolls under $5…also a neat trick.  Well, not neat.  Just lucky.  And that Holiday Barbie in the background?  She was NOT $5.  You will never, ever, ever find a Holiday Barbie for under $5.  Barbie?  Yes.  Holiday Barbie?  No.  I took a loss of $2 on her.  She was worth it.  I stalked the clearance aisle of Wal-Mart and Target for months to find 6 of them.

This section might have been my favorite, but it screamed “my girls’ favorite things”.  Here we had tiny porcelain tea sets, Little Pet Shop sets, and My Pretty Pony sets.  I have NO idea what makes those silly Pet Shop toys so expensive, but the kids love them.  Combine “animals” with the words “tiny parts” and you can sell to kids, no questions asked.

I was very excited to get these cribs, and the kindergarten girls agreed, but we didn’t sell all of them.  Such a great toy for $3.25, but again, you never know what kids will buy.

We have a preschool, so many kids have baby brothers and sisters.  Getting baby toys for a good price is darn near impossible.  I found leap frog phones, Little People packaged in cool tubes, play dough sets with tools, those darned Mr. Potato Heads, Handy Manny sets, books, and nesting/building blocks.

Home was a home run for me this year.  If I do this project in the future, I only want to be assigned to home.  I’m good at figuring out what kids want to buy in this category.  We had glittery candles of all sizes and shapes.  Tiny, tiny snowglobes for 75 cents…all 40 of them flew off the tables.  I had big snowglobes, singing snowglobes, cookie jars, and again, more chopstick sets that sold very well.

You can pretty much sell as many fleece blankets as you can find.  Holiday CDs still sold fairly well, but I see this technology phasing out soon.

Kitchen and bath hand towels are always important to have, because they are fairly cheap to get on clearance after the holidays, and make a good gift for Moms and Grandmas.

The copper cookie cutters were fun, and of course travel mugs are a big deal because kids see their parents carrying them.  Plates?  Yep, those holiday plates go fast, very, very fast.  I love the holiday mugs, and I think we sold out by the end of the last day.  One of my favorite gifts was that moose.  He holds a chalkboard.  He was just too cute on the table.

Spoon rests, more mugs, Santa Bear cookie jars, and it seems silly, but kids LOVE salt and pepper shakers.  The kids are great at picking up one without the other, while I dash madly about the shop yelling, “Who is missing Pepper?  Someone has Salt and has forgotten the Pepper!” You should have seen the chaos that ensued when someone picked up the Star of David candle sticks, but left the silver candles behind.  Or how about the girl who left her socks, wrapped neatly in the Hanukkah bag, only to find out that my Mom had gift wrapped in Hanukkah, not knowing it was Hanukkah, and I spent an hour trying to figure out which girls in the 6th grade celebrated Hanukkah…only to find out it was a girl who celebrated Christmas.  Oh well, it gave us extra time to get the Dreidel-shaped cookie jar wrapped.  For the girl who DOES celebrate Hanukkah, thank heavens.

Personally, I liked my tiny hand blown ornament section.  Mainly because I saw these at Macy’s for about $15 per box, and I got the EXACT SAME THING at Old Time Pottery for about $2.15 per box.  Deep discount stores aren’t always junk…find out which stores take clearance from the big names, and you’ll be surprised at what you can find.  For example, the digital cameras on keychains were $20 at Bed, Bath and Beyond right after Christmas.  In June, the EXACT SAME THING in the EXACT SAME PACKAGING, was $5 at the $5 and under store.  I’ll make it hard for you to pay full price ever again.

I really cut back on pet items this year because I noticed we had a lot of left last year….OOPS.  Again, from year to year, the shopping habits at our Gifts Galore change.  Obviously all the pet beds sold, but I should have had about 4x the number of pet treats.  Win some, lose some.

I cut back on candy simply because if we don’t sell it, it’s a lost item.  It can’t be stored for a year.  I could have sold twice as much, and maybe 3x.  Not because I, as an adult, think it’s a great gift.  It’s because KIDS LOVE CANDY.  Duh, Lori, should have seen that one coming.  I did manage to get Colts Candy Bars, because HEY, there is ONE Colts item under $5 in this city…chocolate.

And last, but not least, my Hanukkah section.  I had Yankee Festival of Lights Candles, mugs, light up dreidels, and the ever-famous Dreidel-shaped cookie jar.  Sold all 4 of them, and this section was met with rave reviews.

Are you tired yet?  Are you still reading?  If you are, it is possible that you are as crazy as I am.  But here’s the real shocker: see all this “stuff”?  You’ve seen 25% of it.  Yes…1/4th.  I bought everything in quantities of 4 and split it up for restocking.  Using this method, the kids on the last afternoon have a mirror image of the merchandise that the kids had on the first morning of shopping.  It doesn’t matter when your class shops, chances are, the stock is good.  We have one golden rule at our Santa Shop: We Do Not Sell Junk!  So multiply this mess times 4, and that’s the sum total of what I’ve purchased.  Kind of like a carwreck, you can’t help but look.

Finally, and not terribly exciting, but oh so terribly organized, are our gift wrapping stations.  Pictured below are 2 of our 4 stations, filled with pre-cut curling ribbon, bows, bubble wrap, wrapping paper, pre-painted bags, holiday themed scissors, and endless amounts of tape.  Each station holds 2 wrappers, and when the larger middle school classes shop, we have 3, which means we can have anywhere from 8-12 parents wrapping at any given time.  We also have cashier stations, which generally hold 3-4 cashiers.  We have large bags donated from Target for the kids to use while shopping, receipts, 2800 gift tags, and Shopper Helpers skilled in helping children aged 3-13 find just the right gift for the teenage brother who hasn’t left his room in months and the 3 year old sister who likes to play dress up.

The real trick to pulling this event off is THE ENDLESS ASSISTANCE.  My Mother put in countless hours watching the girls while I ran out to shop.  Greg carried every single box, probably 4 or more times.  He packed them, he hauled them, he updated the database that cataloged them.  He’s probably touched all 3777 gifts 16 times.  He hung the lights, the large signs, and then took them back down again.  He ran his legs off for 4 days straight.  My Mother-in-Law not only helped me shop, but flew in for SEVEN days to help with the girls this past week.  Our Mothers also worked the shop and wrapped about a zillion gifts each.  My Sister-in-Law and Mother-in-Law got up at 4:00 am on December 26th to help me shop for 14 hours straight.  My sister and father created the “Winter Wonderland” effect in the front windows and with the large, metallic blue trees, to a huge applause from the school.  I cannot begin to count the hours put in by the PTA President, President Elect, and SO many other volunteers.  They helped paint the bags, act as critical floaters when there were holes in the schedule, and kept me from killing myself when it became overwhelming.  The administration practically gave me oxygen.  I’m quite certain every teacher in the school said thank you. Even the smallest of children said thank you.  My carpool partner took 2 days off of work to volunteer at the shop, and her bright smile really kept me going.  She has a quiet confidence about her that calms even the most frayed of nerves. When the snow storm hit and we started the first day of shopping with 3 volunteers (instead of 20), parents just wandered in, asking if they could help.  When it was time to clean up, countless people stayed well past school hours to help, even though they hadn’t signed up to do it.  Just because.  As Greg said, “With people as nice as this, we’ll gladly volunteer at this school again and again.”  I asked for 90 volunteers and probably had 120.  I’m overwhelmed by the sense of community at Sara’s school.

I actually had a mentor named Kathy.  Kathy and her husband invented this completely zany event.  They took what “was” Gifts Galore, and created what “is” Gifts Galore: the kids favorite event of the school year.  In “how the war was won” post, I’ll tell you the behind the scenes downright hilarious stories about the things we did to make the magic for the kids.  Kathy wrote every last detail down and taught me how to do this job.  She volunteered both days, even though her kids have graduated from the school, and led me through the madness of the shopping days.  Without her, I couldn’t have done it, not even close.  She’s been like a big sister to me, and she’ll hold a special place in my heart always.

I say always, because I will never, ever forget this experience.  It was trying, difficult, wild, funny, exciting, exhausting….and I’ve never done anything like it.  At times I cursed it, but I’m not sorry I did it.  I’m now known at Sara’s school as a “Gifts Galore Mom”, and that ain’t shabby.  I was happy to give back to a school that has given our family nothing short of a miracle.  So while Sara’s school has been busy thanking me, I want to say thank you to them.  It was my humble pleasure to be of use.  And Greg? Not sure how I’m ever going to repay you for this one!  Does it help that while I’m a Gifts Galore Mom, the entire school is calling you “The Husband of the Year”?!