Merry Christmas from Us To You!

We are so blessed to be happy, healthy, and surrounded by loved ones!

Tonight, Matthew will be playing clarinet in the 6th Grade Holiday Concert at John Bassett Moore Intermediate School. Jim and I are so very proud of him!

My mother, Susan Addicott, will be visiting with us during the week of Christmas, and then it's back to work for a few days before we celebrate New Years at First Night in Dover, Delaware.

Matt and I send you our love and friendship. May the new year find you and yours comfort and joy!

Santa Claus' comes to Smyrna

Saturday morning, I woke up quickly and quickly got myself ready to make my way down to the Smyrna Opera House. The night before I had spent an evening there watching a performance from CoroAllegro, Delaware's premier chamber choir from Wilmington. They sung beautiful a series of mostly uncommonly heard holiday songs, but all in A Cappella. I was pleasantly surprised by the performance. It only enhanced my feelings that I had when I saw Santa and Mrs. Claus enter the Smyrna Opera House! Initially, I had told myself how nice it would be to see the young children react to Santa. After all, Matt was spending time with his dad, and has outgrown the visits with Santa. I arrived just in time to make my way up to the third floor art gallery where I could help make a table up with crafts for the 75 children scheduled for the morning. I found a few Smyrna's high school art students that looked familiar and gave them all hugs. We spoke of the spring musical yet to be organized, and gave the tables a quick look over and the kids filtered in. All the children had their parents, brothers, and sisters and some grandparents. Quietly, to my surprise, they found the crafts they were interested in and went to work. Ten minutes later Santa comes through the door! I found that I was first in line to see him? It took a few moments for me to realize I wasn't 8 years old and that I should move aside! I thought, "Gee, I even know Santa personally, and I'm still excited!" I took lots of photos to be submitted to the local paper. After the craft, and a visit on Santa's lap, the children walked downstairs to the second floor where the theatre stage is located. We all had a sing-a-long with Mrs. Claus until Santa arrived for the final song "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer." He told us all that he hoped we wouldn't be awake when he visited for he had lots of work to do. Off he went out the side door. Next the audience watched "Rudolph" the movie - our first showing at the SOH since the 50s.

Saturday evening, the same night, I went to dinner and then a high school play. I picked up a church girlfriend, and we went to the new "improved" Smyrna Diner and in came....you guessed it.....A REAL Mr. & Mrs. Claus. It just started snowing, when they came in dressed in red velvet, and Mrs. Claus had on a white fur coat. He had a real beard, and she had real white hair. I couldn't believe they were dining just across from us. I tried not to stare, but I couldn't help it. As they made their way to pay their bill, all the children noticed Santa a ran out of their seats to surround him. He was so delighted. It was a scene that just made my heart burst. I was so emotional, that I was afraid Santa would see my tears, so I turned to my friend and went outside to get air! Pulling myself together, I came inside to quickly to say Merry Christmas to Santa and then he disappeared...

The performance at the high school was well done! It was a who-dunnit called "I Bet Your Life." As I drove home in the cold snow-flurried weather, I was thinking what a wonderful life I have and how good it feels to still feel young!

Holiday fun at DNREC

Let the festivities begin! As an employee with DNREC, I love the fun things we do throughout the year. We have fundraising drives for local charities, and employee appreciation day and Department awards ceremonies, and holiday celebrations! Our IT Help Desk Section received a Team Award this year. There are several different Divisions within DNREC, and I belong to the Office of the Secretary. Every December we celebrate the holidays and our section's employee recognition by attending a luncheon. For the last 3 years, I've played the piano during the event to give it a little more spirit. This year, I asked the committee if I could put together a fun game "know your music". I was lucky to find a co-worker that volunteered to come to my home and pick up the piano. The piano at the Sheraton was $500 to rent for 4 hours? Now, I needed to find a good game show host. Luckily, DNREC is full of fun and creative people. I knew Scott Lynch would be perfect for Dover. Also, I'm going to do this for the New Castle folks for their Holiday luncheon, but with a different host.

Scott (from the Energy Office) is intelligent, fun, creative, and mostly not afraid of going over the top! We'd talked about his recent involvement with our own Parks "Who done it?" in the state owned mansions so I knew he'd play the part well! Since are songs are mainly from the 80s, he decided to enter as Tom Cruise in "Risky Business" wearing shorts, long white socks, and shades....with "Old Time Rock n Roll-Bob Seger" playing as his entrance music. The audience loved it! We also put together facts and hints into a jeopardy-type projected board. The table to pick the question and answer got the points. Categories were: Movies, TV Shows, Beatles, Country, and Disney. Half of the questions, I played a measure of music as the hint. We even got the Secretary, John Hughes to sing M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E! Everyone had a blast and told us how fun it was. Scott and I look forward to coming up with new categories and questions for next year! We agreed that this is just the beginning of our beautiful creative collaborative friendship!

Next week, I can't wait to see the response of the 40 or more folks up in New Castle! How exciting!

Mr. McGuigan is Wal-Mart Teacher of the Year!

Matt and I are so proud of Jim. This is the article in the Smyrna Sun-Times Fri Nov 14, 2008.

The Smyrna School District received another honor in October, when Wal-Mart named Jim McGuigan Teacher of the Year. Jim McGuigan, a fifth grade teacher at John Bassett Moore (JBM) Intermediate School, started his teaching career in 2001 at North Elementary School. McGuigan was named North Elementary’s Teacher of the Year in 2002, an honor from the school district for which the school staff selects the teacher. The Wal-Mart Teacher of the Year award is a local award that has been presented to deserving teachers since 1995. Parents fill out nomination forms to nominate teachers then Wal-Mart calls the principal of the school where the teacher works to confirm that the teacher is a good candidate. Nationwide Wal-Mart has contributed $29 million to schools directly. They give a $1000 grant to the school of the winning teacher to do what they need. John Bassett Moore Intermediate School is putting the money into the Parent Teacher Organization (PTO). The teacher gets $100 for class supplies or whatever resources are needed for the classroom. Parents fill out an anonymous form, writing the teacher’s name, reason for nominating the teacher, and the school where the teacher works. The parents look at how fun the learning environment is and what the teacher has done for the school community. There are usually approximately 25 nominees. McGuigan thinks fun and learning go hand-in-hand and encouragement is essential. “I want them to be learning in a positive atmosphere,” he said. “If a parent tells me, ‘My child really likes it here,’ that made my whole day because they’re happy.” Jackie Batts, the Community Coordinator for the Wal-Mart Distribution Center in Smyrna, said there were many nominations for Jim McGuigan and he is a well deserving recipient. “They [the students] participate in his class,” Batts said. “He takes a hands-on approach. He’s developing them into being mature adults by giving them responsibility. He went beyond what he had to do.” McGuigan said it was very generous of Wal-Mart to give money to JBM as a whole. “For them to give $1000 to JBM on my behalf, that was a great, great feeling,” he said. More than the financial significance, though, McGuigan said the award is very meaningful to him personally. “I was nominated by parents and that was the greatest gift,” he said. “When you have kids who are happy in the classroom you have parents who are happy. For parents to reach out and say ‘great job,’ it really means the world to me. My kids are thrilled too. Being taught by teacher of the year is a big deal. It’s because of them that we do what we do. I’m honored that my parents thought enough to do this.” McGuigan said he loves waking up every morning and going to a job he loves. “Next to my son, teaching is the most important thing to me, my students especially,” he said. “I love every moment of it. I look forward to coming in every day. There’s never I day I wake up and say I don’t feel like working today.” McGuigan said he tries to make the classroom a fun and comfortable learning setting. “When the kids come home they don’t have horror stories about their day,” McGuigan said. “It really makes for happy parents. I don’t want my kids to look back and say, ‘I hated fifth grade.’ The most important thing is learning in a safe and fun environment doing things at their own pace.” If teachers lecture the entire class time instead of finding activities to do, the kids may not absorb the information as well, he said. “I know what this kid needs; I have an idea how to get in this kid’s head,” he said. “That’s what I love about being self contained. We have all day. We do all the subjects every day, and I won’t stop until all my kids get it.” JBM Intermediate School Principal Derek Prillaman said McGuigan was a deserving candidate for the award. “Jim’s a great teacher,” Prillaman said. “It’s hard to mask all of the good work he does. The parents and the kids see it. We’re very blessed to have him.” “To me the main thing is the kids,” McGuigan said. “Academics come second simply because if the kids aren’t happy the academics don’t matter. Motivating the kids and loving them, making sure they know that they can trust me, and that they’re safe is important.” McGuigan said the important thing is that the kids know they can trust him and know that they work as a team in the classroom. “We have a community in here,” McGuigan said. “When we have a problem we handle it as a community. We take care of it right here together. I want to make sure they’re happy and they’re safe because when kids are happy they’ll move a mountain for you and you won’t even realize they’re working.”