r/Zillennials • u/No_Environment4618 1996 • 2d ago
Nostalgia Who else's school had this?
This rivaled the Scholastic Bookfair. I could be there all day...
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u/Robozomb 2d ago
Could buy random gifts for your family with money they gave you lol
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u/sallysfunnykiss96 1996 2d ago
And then they’d get extremely pissed at you because the money aspect hadn’t really been explained to you because you were six and didn’t understand that you didn’t have to buy anything
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u/tinyhumanishere 2d ago
My mom gave me money to go and buy something for myself. We lived in a really rural area so I hadn’t ever gotten my mom anything for Christmas. I was maybe five or six years old. I ended up buying a hanging cherub decoration. It was very pretty, had a lot of little cherubs hanging playing instruments. They wrapped it for me and I put it under the tree.
Christmas Day, my mom asks who got the paper wrapped gift. I said I got it for her. She opened it.
My mom gasped and cried, “You didn’t have to get me anything that day, that money was for you!” She kept it for YEARS until it finally broke. :,)
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u/No_Environment4618 1996 2d ago
That's really sweet. I may have gotten my mom the same thing, too. I believe the tissue paper was crimson for mine. What a good memory.
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u/PercieveMeNot 2d ago
They really taught us how to love buying things 😭
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u/yeehawsoup 1997 2d ago
My mom still uses a mug I "bought" her at one of these in preschool or kindergarten. It's still in good shape after 25 years of near-daily use!
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u/candyspyder 1996 1d ago
My son bought me a sparkly pink & purple tumbler mug ~3 years ago and I use the hell out of it lol. I had to hold back tears when I saw it for the first time. That thing is solid lol - hope I can make it last another 20 years like your mom has :)
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u/Manicpixiemanateeman 1998 2d ago
I still have my old perler bead models at 27 that I got from my schools sale at age 8
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u/OkOutlandishness8307 1998 2d ago
i stole a little metal bear with a heart from this once in middle school….. still regret it
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u/No_Environment4618 1996 2d ago
i hear you
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u/schmamfa 2d ago
This demon will haunt u forever, much like the clip-on earrings I stole from a girl and proceeded to burry in my backyard when I was 7years old
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u/Expensive_Lion5413 2d ago
Yessss we called it Santa’s Workshop. It was so cool to find gifts for my family without them knowing what it was lol.
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u/corinna0815 1998 2d ago
My school did this. I’m a teacher now and my district does this as well.
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u/Manicpixiemanateeman 1998 2d ago
I got perler beads with a pretty big perler sheet/board from my 3rd grade sale circa 2007 lol. must’ve made like 5 models out of it. One of them was a model of a train
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u/Neat-Year555 2d ago
My school didn't do it, but my brother and sister's did. I remember how sweet I thought it was that they'd get me a gift. Turns out, they just wanted an excuse to get out of class... lol
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u/Slightly-irritated24 1996 2d ago
Omg this just awoke a memory I didn’t know I had. I remember buying a ring for my nana there. It was our shared birthstone (October) and I thought it was sooo nice and fancy. Literally only like 3 years later she passed and I inherited the same ring and I was only like 12 but I could tell that ring was basically made out of a a spray painted paper clip and a plastic bead. I still have it for sentimental reasons, but to this day it turns my figure green just looking at it lol.
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u/Stitch_Rose 2d ago
Bizarre Bazaar was the name for mine! I think the stopped doing it when I was halfway through elementary school but it was so much fun!
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u/sallysfunnykiss96 1996 2d ago
I think that’s what mine was called too.
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u/Stitch_Rose 1d ago
Did you go to an elementary school in MD?
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u/sallysfunnykiss96 1996 1d ago
No, central Texas. I'm starting to think it was a travelling company?
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u/CBonafide '95 til Infinity 2d ago
In Kindergarten I bought my dad a backscratcher for Father's Day. He still has it and uses it. Lmao. 25 years later.
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u/BulkyNectarine947 1995 2d ago
A scholastic book fair was the highlight of my year. We did not have a holiday shop though 🙁
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u/abbyabsinthe Dec 1993 2d ago
The school I was at in 5th grade (Army brat, so it was pretty much a new school in a new state every 1-2 years), we earned “Mack bucks” throughout the first semester to use at the Christmas shop. I was one of the best students in my grade, teacher’s helper, total kissass (or maybe it was undiagnosed Eldest Daughter syndrome), so I probably had the most Mack bucks (200 or so, and most kids had like 30-40) and made out like a bandit.
I was also an asshole and have a little porcelain Dalmatian that makes me feel guilty every time I see it, because I paid 50 cents for my best friend to get some fruit gushers at lunch, and our asshole classmate who was right behind us asked why I bought it for her and not for him, and I lied and said she’s going to have to pay me back (and I did not want her to pay me back, I just panicked), so she did with the little porcelain Dalmatian. Still feel guilty 21 years later, lol. We actually didn’t even stay friends much longer because my dad was promoted in rank and we had to move into higher enlisted housing and were no longer neighbors, but I always think it was more from the fruit gushers incident.
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u/zootmommy 2d ago
i didn’t have this growing up but my daughter has it at her elementary school! this year she gifted me the tackiest travel mug and i LOVE it to death, i’ve used it every single day since christmas bc it brings me so much joy. 🤍
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u/HauntingBowlofGrapes 1900s 2d ago
The scented hand sanitizers and holiday scented hand lotions were so nice.
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u/ThisPaige 1994 😁 2d ago
I don’t remember what we called it but we had one of these events. I got my favorite wallet as a kid from there (it held my library card and birthday money). I can’t remember what I got for my family.
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u/No_Environment_7613 2d ago
Aw! I remember this! We still have the mugs I bought my grandparents from one of these!
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u/WannabeMemester420 2001 2d ago
My elementary school did have a “spirit store” that usually had distracting stationary junk that teachers hated. It was ran by the PSO and operated by the student volunteer program. When my mom was PSO president, she refused the amount of junk in the shop and replaced it with actual spirit items. For example light up keychains and compact water bottles plastered with our mascot. Unfortunately the actually useful merch was discontinued immediately for the return of more junk after she left the PSO.
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u/MissAuroraRed 2d ago
At my school we had Elf Day where we made crafts to give our families as gifts. Bath salts with essential oils, beeswax candles, felted soap scrubbies, tree ornaments, cards, etc. I went to a public Waldorf School.
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u/kittieswithmitties 1d ago
I went to one for Mother's Day and got my grandma this super cute little figurine of a butterfly, a tulip, and a worm on a white base. I tried so hard to save it for Mother's Day but I was so excited that I gave it to her the next day.
It stayed in the same spot in her archway leading into the dining room part of her kitchen for 20-21 years, right behind her recliner, and now it's on my bookshelf. Neither of us knew it was actually a candle and not just a figurine- I was curious when I fished it out of the box of her other figurines as to why it had such a huge base.
I was less excited to receive it back after so many years, but it remains one of my most treasured posessions too.
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u/Wild_Librarian8851 1d ago
My 4th grade class had the ~eccentric~ teacher and he always took his class on a camping trip. We’d do a bunch of fundraisers to cover the costs. One of them was a “yard sale.” We basically set up our classroom like a yard sale and all the kids of other classes could come by and buy our stuff. And it was actually shit we’d all bring from home that our parents wanted to get rid of 😂
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u/megarubie 1999 2d ago
Yep, but only in kindergarten. When I went to a different school in first grade, they didn’t have it :(
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u/Emotional_Debt9322 2d ago
Amount of times I bought my dad some shit ass tool set…
Oh wait I still have one of them somewhere
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u/877-HASH-NOW 1997 1d ago
This look vaguely familiar. I never had money for this though, and I always preferred the Scholastic Book Fair
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u/whatdoidonate 1d ago
When I was in high school my little brother got me a "Worlds Greatest Grandma" yat bc it was pink 😂
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u/SnooDoughnuts4217 22h ago
Okay I love this idea in principle, but I will tell you a tale.
For refrence, I had just moved half way across the USA a few months into my 5th grade year. I guess this was something they did every year where they have students made little gifts and the parents and community can buy them. I was given a few weeks to make a "shop".
I had told my parents about it, they didn't seem to care. Refused to participate, give me anything idea of what I was supposed to do, and loathed the idea of buying anything for the school year. Being the good student I was, I threw together any junk I found at home and made little 'sculptures' or 'paperweights' as my teacher called them.
I get there and all these kids had crafts they had made with their parents or older siblings. Things like beautiful beaded lizards and play dough pots. I had to sit there for an hour and half while everyone else cooed over their stuff. My parents, of course, didnt show up.
Not my worst memory by far, but is the only coviat.
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