The pleasure of giving

It's 3h30 am. I finished some pie dough, cleared up a mess in the kitchen (I'm far from done) and dragged my feet towards the stairs when I remembered (thanks to the notes sticking all over my cupboards), that little Évangéline wanted to give her teacher a card and a treat tomorrow. She received a pretty card form her teacher yesterday and a little present. She received a few treats from her friends too. I'm always touched by this. Of course I often forget about it myself. Thanks to my notes though, I headed to my cupboards instead of bed and started to improvise with what I had.

Earlier she found a blue sparkly bag that was used for her sister's first communion. It's been around for a while (still in great shape). She also helped herself to a box of cards I bought (when I felt like I was on top of things). She chose a nice one with a big red cardinal on it. She then asked her father to write a message to her teacher. She was quite good at dictating the letter! ;) Marc kept it simple though. Then she signed it and even wrote Mme Lynn on the envelope with a little sticker for the finishing touch. I was impressed. This happened while I was rushing and working on dinner at the other end of the room. I told her that I would assemble a few biscotti I made and some chocolates (leftovers from our advent calendar) and put them in a tin box for her to give.

(There should be a photo of a card with a cardinal here... Too tired to transfer, imagination is better!)

I quickly realized that there weren't any boxes. At least not small ones. I looked and looked. Then I found this Ikea plant pot that was taking space in my pantry. It was supposed to be in the basement with other items that will end up in a garage sale but it was holding tape and string in my kitchen instead. It wasn't very good at its job. So I grabbed it, cleaned it up, put biscotti in it and filled the gaps with chocolates. I secured the whole thing neatly with cling wrap, took some tissue paper to wrap around and in the blue bag it went. Done! It even looked better than expected. A candy cane gives a bit of colour.









I suddenly felt pretty excited about the whole thing and here I am writing about it. It's nice to give little presents that say "Thank you", or "I care". Madame Lynn happens to be a great teacher and my daughters love her to bits. I'm just glad we can show her. Now if only I could buy her a bottle of wine before school starts! ;)