Easy Teacher Gifts for the Holidays

Here are some easy teacher gifts to help your family inexpensively treat the teachers in your life this holiday season. To help, I asked some teachers for their input.

Teachers do get a lot of presents from their students at holiday time, and after they've been teaching for several years, the stuff starts to pile up. The teachers I contacted said they tend to get way too many coffee mugs, Christmas ornaments, candles, vases and other knick-knacks. Only one teacher admitted to later regifting some of these items. Answers varied depending on how long the teacher has been teaching; for example, a newer teacher may not have gotten way too much of anything yet, where a more tenured one may have decades' worth of these presents. The message was clear, though: Household items, which may not be as personal, are appreciated but at some point a teacher's home runs out of room.

What kinds of gifts might your family get a teacher that you can be sure they'll use and appreciate? Gift certificates to ice cream stores, grocery stores, restaurants, teachers' supply stores and movie passes topped the list. According to one teacher, it doesn't even matter what amount the gift certificate is, because every little bit helps. The teachers I spoke with have received gift certificates in amounts ranging from 50 cents to 50 dollars, but they appreciated and used everything they got. Inexpensive items that teachers can use in their classrooms include stickers, books, pads of sticky-notes, boxes of Kleenex, snacks and boxes of pencils or pens.

What unusual gifts have teachers gotten? Anything from an amaryllis bulb to an African scarf to a musical, electronic tree ornament that never shut up and is, 25 years later, still something the whole family laughs about.

The most appreciated gifts of all are homemade, especially cards and letters from the children. More than one tenured teacher has kept these cards for years because they remind her of the lives she's touched. One former teacher keeps a large box in her basement full of this memorabilia and looks at it whenever she's feeling blue. "You think about these kids and remember something funny they might have said or done, that you hadn't thought of in years, and sometimes you laugh until you cry. That's the stuff that's gonna last."

Teachers appreciate it, no matter how they're remembered at holiday time, and your family doesn't have to spend big bucks to demonstrate your thanks. Involve your child in the gift's selection and include a written letter from him or her, or make your child central to the gift's creation. Keep it simple but personal, both in terms of your child and in terms of the teacher who will receive the gift. The internal reward to your child, in teaching him or her how to make gift-giving matter instead of creating an empty exercise in commercialism, may mean just as much to your family as it does to your child's teacher.