Things I Know 270 of 365: Blissmo boxes make great teacher gifts

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be making some suggestions of possible sources of gifts for the teachers in your life. Some will be products for purchase. Some will be ideas of things to make. All of them will be meant to help remember teachers as worthy of thanks.

A few weeks ago, a small cardboard box showed up at my door. While I didn’t know what it held, I knew from whence it came.

It was my first blissmo box, and I recommend it for your consideration as a gift for a classroom teacher.

The Basics:

  • for $19 US each month, you choose from one of three themed boxes curated by the folks at blissmo
  • each box is filled with between $25-$50 (or more) worth of merchandise
  • the products are “either certified as organic or eco-friendly, or that have a people & planet positive approach in the DNA of the business”
  • either keep all the products for yourself or hand them out to your friends as gifts

I was gifted 3 months of blissmo boxes by a friend, and I loved the first one. Guest-curated by the folks at Good, it included:

  • a $25 gift from PACT underwear (I used it on socks)
  • a miir water bottle ($1 of each bottle sold “provides one person with clean water for one year)
  • organic, small-farm-grown tea from the folks at runa
  • a set of To-Go-Ware bamboo utensils in a pouch made from upcycled plastic bottles (it lives in my backpack and has already saved me from using at least 10 sets of plastic silverware)
  • a 3-pack of notebooks from Scout Books made of 100% recylced paper, printed with soy ink and sourced from local paper mills (think eco-responsible moleskins)

I was a little worried I wouldn’t dig every item that showed up. My worry was misplaced. You can gift a blissmo box here or sign a recipient up directly here. While my thinking is running along the lines of teacher gifts, these would be a great monthly care package for college students as well.

Things I Know 268 of 365: I loved teacher gifts

A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.

– Lucius Annaeus Seneca

One of the things I unexpectedly missed when I moved from teaching middle school to teaching high school were the little gifts from kids (read parents) around the holidays.

Something about a carefully chosen gift from the families I served meant I was doing okay.

Even when I was teaching older kids, it was special to get a card on the day before break with a few sentences letting me know I was cared for.

One family consistently included a gift card to the Trader Joe’s up the block from SLA. More than once, those cards came in handy when I was out of cash or another student needed some money for a meal after school.

For me, any gift or card from a student or parent was a sign I wasn’t in it alone, that the work I was doing meant a little bit more. It meant, when they sat down to think about who they felt compelled to appreciate, who I was in that student’s life meant enough to be remembered.

When I was in school, I remember creating holiday gifts for my teachers with my mom. One year we bought each of them a coffee mug and made homemade hot chocolate mix. I think there was a tea towel thrown into the mix as well. As I got older, I didn’t see why the gifts were important. They seemed childish or uncool. Still, my mom insisted, and I would hall a shopping bag full of small gifts in to dispense just before break.

When I was a teacher and my mom and sister Rachel prepared gifts for Rachel’s teachers, I could empathize with what it meant to be remembered as someone worth receiving a gift. I got that it wasn’t childish, but part of what we do when we want to say to others that they are worth our gratitude, worth our remembering.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be making some suggestions of possible sources of gifts for the teachers in your life. Some will be products for purchase. Some will be ideas of things to make. All of them will be meant to help remember teachers as worthy of thanks.