4 days to go until the official start of Wish Week. It's truly been a year in the making. I'll start this post with my favorite photo from last year. Greg and Ethan are two boys that give me a reason to smile everyday but this photo is Winter Wishes. It was taken right at the completion of Ethan's big highway patrol wish on the first day of Wish Week last year. I love it. Two buddies, they wished for each other and even though the wish was for and all about Ethan it was Greg he wanted by his side and Greg was full of joy for him. Nearly a year later both of those boys have gotten taller but when Greg got his football wish in October he wanted to share it with Ethan. So it's my favorite photo because it wraps up kindness, friendship, joy, and love all in one image.
So 4 days to go....... a friend of mine who teaches elementary in another district posted a photo of her school library with a beautiful table decorated. There was warm cider, and Christmas cookies, and other nice things. It's something special they do for their teachers and they called it "comfort and joy" week. It looked nice but I kind of chuckled. We are smack dab in the middle and maybe leading up to another 10 days of "mass chaos and pandemonium" week. But I think I can speak for nearly everyone when I say we love it. Here are some typical scenes from across our middle school buildings - there is glitter, paper, spray adhesive, window paint, crepe paper, and fake spray snow EVERYWHERE because a kid or two or few wished for our hallways to be festive and decorated. Our offices are stacked with boxes that keep arriving from online wish orders. One workroom has teachers assembling some things like candy bouquets during their planning periods and another becomes a wrapping station after school everyday. In at least one office within an office there's a gift "bedazzling" station set up where after gifts are wrapped they are made even more beautiful. There are two offices FILLED with gifts either wrapped and sorted or still waiting to be wrapped. There are classrooms where meetings are held after school to plan wishes that are experiences or the assembly or other things. In the library there is a Santa Shoppe going on that is a whole different project. Our kids are just kids. Everyday we notice they become a little more excitable about winter break approaching, BUT in the midst of all of this our teachers are still teaching and our kids are still learning. It's a very busy time but it's good.
So 4 days to go......some of us are getting to the point that we aren't sleeping so well. Thinking about things like have we done enough, did we order everything, and what else can we do? Our community continues to show up in huge ways to make sure that our needs are met to meet the needs and wants and wishes of our kids. We are at the point that every time we talk about a kid and a wish that's going to happen someone's eyes fill with tears. We are at the point that the kids start thinking they know more about their friends than they did when they made the wish and they stop us to give us more info or ask if they can add a wish.
4 days to go, we are at the point where everyday someone tells us about a kid who has shown great kindness or a kid who has a need. Will we ever be done shopping? Will we have enough money? Are the right wishes and kids on our radars? Have we forgotten anything? What if we could......? Will kids understand that every wish made for them (big or small) was a big deal because everyone only got two wishes so the idea that someone used one of their wishes for them was a big deal? Will every kid somehow be touched by kindness and feel some love from the things we have planned during Wish Week? These are the things that keep us up at night.
It's going to be a great week because I'm quite confident that we have the world's greatest kids and the world's kindest community and great things are going to happen for kids over the next week and a half. Several posts back I believe I wrote about this one wish that we've been working on the longest. The one that I can't get out of my head. It's the one that I think on some days became an obsession because I just thought we could make it possible but wasn't exactly sure how. It's one that we had to reach out to people who knew people and to old friends who might have a connection. Now that I think about it we have lots of wishes that have worked out that way. Winter Wishes truly is a community and collaborative effort. Well that one wish, the one I thought would easy, but it's been hard, it looks like it MIGHT be granted tomorrow. If it all still works out it's going to be a great start to the week that is the start of Wish Week. Keep your prayers coming.
4 days to go and there's so many thoughts and so much emotion. Please excuse my grammatical and typing errors, from the start I said this blog would be raw. I'm so ready for Wish Week to get started but then there's this other side that knows once it gets started it has to end. That's the part that's hard but I'll save that for another blog. Now I'm going to go work on what I like to think of as "just one more wish".
Thanks for reading and for being a part of our journey - Melissa E.
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