I saw Christmas decorations at the mall this week. A second wave of back to school shopping has become a Columbus Day tradition for me and my kids – no sense buying cold weather clothes when their sizes seem to change by the week. Maybe I haven’t paid close enough attention the last couple of years, but it seems to me that the “Christmas Creep” continues.

Since everyone else seems to be rounding in to the spirit already, I’ll do my part (according to our great friends at Trabian I’m getting to this 28 days earlier than last year)

We are quickly approaching our 17th year of providing a holiday party at Sam Rosen Elementary in Fort Worth and our 7th year at Webb Elementary in Arlington.

Anyone who has ever been to one of these events will tell you it is THE best thing they do all holiday seson long.

Here’s the schedule for 2007:

• Dec 11 (morning) Party Prep at Sam Rosen
• Dec 12 (all day) Party at Sam Rosen
• Dec 17 (morning) Party Prep at Webb
• Dec 18 (all day) Party at Webb

Raymond Shands is the coordinator for Sam Rosen

Vince Heimann is the boss over the party at Webb.

Even though the parties last all day, you are welcome to work only part of the day if that is what you can do. In addition to volunteers, we make a donation of winter coats to each school and try to buy a few items for goodie bags for each child. Your donation of coats and/or cash would be greatly appreciated!

All volunteers must be approved in advance by the respective district. Click here for a copy of the Arlington ISD volunteer form. The form has 3 pages, and the 3rd page is all that is required to be filled out. Please fill out the form and forward it to Vince, his fax number is 817-273-5913. The Fort Worth ISD volunteer form is one page, be sure to copy your I.D. on to the form and fax to Raymond at 817-882-0136.

The deadline to submit the background form is November 21st. If you are recruiting volunteers from your shop, you may also want to plan in advance for substitute volunteers by having them fill out the form as well.

If you need directions to the schools, click on their names above.

Lastly, check the comments to this post for any subsequent information from the committee.