Sunday, December 24, 2006

Merry Christmas, 2006


Merry Christmas 2006
Originally uploaded by mahlness.
It is Christmas Eve. Nothing puts me more in the mood for the holiday than the annual "trimming" of the school home page (arborheights.com), something I've been doing for many years. Traditions are so important, and the ones we have a hand in creating are ever special.

And when you get a chance to create anew, it is really exciting. Last night I had a video skype with the rest of my family, at my sister's home in Ithaca, NY. Three thousand miles away, and yet we spoke and saw each other, for over half an hour - my mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law, and his daughter. But THE moment for me, without doubt, was being able to sign and converse with my deaf/blind brother (who still has enough sight to read signing). We have a date to reconnect Christmas morning.

This afternoon I mailed out 21 Christmas cards to my third graders. Normally I would have handed them out in class on the day before our school vacation, but school was cancelled that day because of a massive power outage in the region. So, we had an aborted, incomplete ending to school...

Next week, I'll crank up the volume on the classroom blog, and see how my kids feel about The Big Question. Thank you, Logan, for writing about it. (The official classroom vote was 16 - 3)

I hope Santa is good to everyone. Merry Christmas!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey Mark,

Merry Christmas to you. As for trimming the web site... I bet most folks don't know how long you have been doing that. You've been Web 2.0 since Web .5...

Have a great break. Hope to run into you in '07..

Best Wishes,
Tim