We have done our "own" holiday shopping for 2 years now. Last year we made almost 3,500 for our PTO that way. We always have items that are 1.00 and for those kids who have no money, parent PTO volunteers usually fund those kids. We don't have that many but we don't want anyone to be left out.

In the past our Holiday Shop committee purchased things from Oriental Trading and discount stores around our area. It is mostly a service for the kids. [img]smile.gif[/img]

We use Fun Services and if you sell a certain amount, on the day before the last day, you will get $500.00 worth of merchandise (leftovers from last year) for free. You can choose to sell it or have something for those who can't afford anything.

We do kid-made-craft holiday sale called Berry Merry. Each participating class makes holiday related items like ornaments, jinglebell necklaces, keychins, candycane reindeer, etc. It ties into the school's economic unit (producers/consumers), and the class gets to keep their profit to use in their rooms. We sell tickets earlier in the week (.25 per ticket), and then the students can go shopping during their recess time. The kids love knowing that they are responsible for the money they make!

We have used a company before but 2 years ago we decided their items were too expensive and the same stuff everytime so we decided to do the holiday shop ourselves. We set a budget and began shopping--purchased alot of items on clearance over the summer and thru magazines. we marked some items up between .25 to .50 and the kids absolutely loved the differnt type items we had. We had items priced from .25 to 5.00 and ran out of things a few times so we were off to the store to get whatever else we could find. We are lucky that most parents here love the idea of the holiday shop and send money in with their kids or bring them to holiday family night and shop with them--so we have very few kids with no money--if there is one or two the teachers sometimes give them a $1 or 2 apiece--or one of the PTO officers will give them a few dollars but like I said most bring money--sometimes too much i think--kindergartners have brought in $75.00 before to shop for 3 people on their list--i mean thats alot when items are $5 and under LOL!!

We use American Carnival Mart's Christmas Shop. We only mark items up .25 to .50 and only make a couple of hundred dollars. This is strictly a service that we provide to our kids. We are a low income school and had an awesome event last Christmas. Great sales. Can only sell the cheaper items it you wish.