Thursday, December 3rd, 2020
Holiday tradition
Students find gifts for family
By Sydney Albert
Photo by Dan Melograna/The Daily Standard
Cora Sudhoff checks out Christmas gift options as she shops for her family in the Christmas shop at Coldwater Elementary School.
COLDWATER - Come coronavirus or snowy weather, the Christmas Shop sponsored each year by the Coldwater Academic Promoters marches on.
Second-graders on Wednesday afternoon filed into a multipurpose room in Coldwater Elementary School that had been transformed by CAP volunteers into a miniature holiday shopping center. Gifts of all kinds, for all members of the family, including pets, were stacked on tables, ready for the little shoppers to make their picks.
Volunteers stood at the ready to help if needed, but by the second grade, most students are seasoned veterans of the Christmas Shop. The adults likened it to being sales representatives in a real store and being brushed off by customers.
"What are you looking for today?"
"Just looking around."
The younger grades are not always so independent. Preschoolers first encountering the shop tend to be wide-eyed and directionless, but the second-graders took their shopping baskets and instantly began browsing, each carrying an envelope listing the family members for whom they needed gifts and how much money they could spend.
In a year that's been notably abnormal, this tradition brings a sense of normalcy that organizer Kathy Carnes said the kids need. The shop is so popular in more normal years that kids have independently organized dances and skits on the playground to show volunteers. Even some junior high students visit the shop to do some shopping for their families.
This year, organizers and the kids had agonized over whether the shop would even open. Carnes said she'd waited until days beforehand to get some gifts such as candy, uncertain if schools would be closed for the remainder of the year or if a new mandate would come out that would affect the shop.
"I had a teacher come in the other day and say, 'The kids have been stressing. They didn't think you guys were going to have one this year, and they were all worried about it.' And they're third-graders," Carnes said, laughing.
The shop is different this year, with reduced afterschool hours and many usual visitors from outside the school not allowed to visit. Students from other schools who are normally invited were not this year, and many of the older volunteers who help the students shop aren't participating, trying to avoid possible exposure to the coronavirus.
The kids don't seem to notice any differences, though. Wearing their masks, the students inspected items for sale, some trying to do the math in their heads to see if they could afford certain gifts. Others eagerly filled their baskets, not paying too much attention to the prices.
Carnes wasn't sure yet what the hot gift item would be among the kids this year but recalled in years past, emoji pillows, big blankets and selfie sticks were popular. Containers of slime are also consistently popular with the kids, even if they aren't always popular with moms, she said.
The students have their logic behind the gifts they choose for different family members. One year, a little girl said her gift for her father was a pair of fuzzy, bright-blue gloves because his favorite color was blue.
As the kids began to check out, they pointed out which purchases were for which family members to the volunteers. Candy for Grandma. An Ohio towel for Mom. Slime for a sister, a book to read to a 1-year-old brother and Snausages for the family dog.
One boy hadn't picked out a gift for his brother, who was on his shopping list. Asked if he wanted to grab something for his brother, he refused.
Apparently, his brother has been naughty this year.
Autumn Schmit said she was getting a Harry Potter-themed gift for her sister who watches the movies "every single day."
Daxton Highley had to hide the gift he'd picked for his mom, who was helping others in his class only a few feet away.
Derrick Beckman got a little carried away with the giving spirit of the holidays, and volunteers had to help him decide which gifts to keep and which to put back.
The fundraiser for CAP, which volunteers estimated has run for more than 20 years, provides money for scholarships and other academic needs such as schoolbooks that CAP provides to the school and its students.
But it also provides happiness to the kids and that little sense of normalcy that would have been dearly missed otherwise.
Photo by Dan Melograna/The Daily Standard
Ella Stammen looks at teddy bears as she shops for Christmas gifts for her family in the Christmas shop at Coldwater Elementary School.
Photo by Dan Melograna/The Daily Standard
Madelynn Sapp eyes the goodies as she shops for Christmas gifts for her family in the Christmas shop at Coldwater Elementary School.
Photo by Dan Melograna/The Daily Standard
Students are able to shop for Christmas gifts for family members in the Christmas shop at Coldwater Elementary School.
