Director’s Thoughts – 12/15/2021
It’s that time of year when there are sweet treats all over the library from staff and patrons alike! After a cookie baking marathon, I brought in cookies for my staff and my Board this week which was a lot of fun. And today, I’m handing out my end-of-the-year appreciation gifts. There are members of my staff that don’t celebrate Christmas and since my gift isn’t really Christmassy in nature, this works out for everyone!
My gift theme this year is “Feed.” Which works on so many great levels. And before you think that I spent months figuring out this theme and how to create a gift around it. Don’t be fooled, I literally came up with this theme on the 3- minute drive to work this morning and it works perfectly!
I wanted to get everyone a little something but also wanted to make sure it was affordable. There are currently 25 staff members in my library, so that can be a tall order at times. I also wanted the gift to be something useful. I didn’t want to have to give out tchotchkes that nobody really wanted. As I was looking around for inspiration, I came across a few ideas.
My sister-in-law’s family owns a chocolate business. It’s a great family to be connected with and I was able to kill two birds with one stone. I supported a local family business for Small Business Saturday and found a small gift for my staff to “feed their bellies.”
My mom made these amazing corner bookmarks with some leftover fabric and willingly donated them to me as staff gifts. This sweet gesture allowed me to “feed their souls.”
And finally, I’ve got a handful of spider plants that needed to transplant into new pots and trimmed up. And that’s where I came up with giving everyone a spider plant baby in their own pot. I found some 6″ white pots on Amazon, picked up some soil from Home Depot, and now have 25 baby spider plants ready to give to loving homes. And this is how I’m “feeding their minds.” Plants, oxygen, brain. Get it? Plus, I added a cute little plant pun because I couldn’t help myself – “Thanks for your be-leaf in me!”
I’m so excited to give out these sweet little appreciation gifts to my staff. It’s been a very long two years of this pandemic, of short staff, of budget cuts and they’ve all done so much to help keep our library running so smoothly. Here’s to a fun day of gifting-giving!
