Although Christmas is certainly the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, for our students even Christmas can’t compete with the excitement of their birthday. It is…

The Most Important Day of the Year!

I could be wrong…but I’m not.

Zack counts the months, days, hours, until his next birthday starting with the day after his birthday. It has gotten to the point that we have had to establish a set of rules as far as when he can talk about his birthday and how often. First and foremost…He cannot talk about his birthday until after Halloween (he has a December birthday). Of course this means absolutely nothing to him. He talks about his birthday whenever someone else has a birthday, whenever he sees or comes up with something to add to his ever growing Birthday List, at dinner every night when he will either say “I want this for my birthday dinner” or he’ll get a pondering look on his face, shake his head, and say “No, I still want stuffed burgers for my birthday dinner,” or whenever the 3rd of any month comes around (his birthday is on the 3rd). Some days it takes everything in me not to explode. Confession–some days I do explode.

For quite some time I have pondered with the idea of setting up a Birthday Club here on Keep In Touch where parents/guardians or the students themselves can sign-up to have their birthday put on a calendar so everyone will know when their birthday is. This year has been especially hard on our students when it comes to birthdays. So here’s the plan for  any student that joins the Birthday Club.

1. A parent/guardian fills out the submission form below with as much/as little information as they want. The only required fields will be the Student Name, birth day (you don’t have to provide the year if you don’t want to), Email address, and whether or not they are on the Keep In Touch Facebook Group.
2. This information will then be organized on a webpage by month with each students name being a link to their own information page. A Birthday Calendar will also be added to the home page here on the website as well as have a link in the drop down menu.
3. Students, parents, and Lutz teachers and staff can then access this information and send a birthday greeting to the Birthday boy/girl.

As far as what type of greeting is sent…this will depend on what information is provided on sign-up. There are many options:

1. Provided Happy Birthday Form: At the bottom of every students/staff information page, there will be a contact form. This form will be sent directly to the birthday recipient with the header: Happy Birthday! All you need to do is fill out the form with your name, email address, and a short message, click submit, and you are done. Doesn’t get much easier than that.
2. Email: Birthday greetings can be emailed either to the parents email address or if the student has their own email address, to theirs.
3. Keep In Touch Facebook Group: If the student is on the Keep In Touch Facebook group, birthday wishes can be posted there.
4. Phone: If a phone number is provided, texting or calling would be an option.
5. Mail: Receiving mail is always exciting to our students, so if an address is provided, cards could always be sent. Zack has every card he’s ever been given.

There are also many types of mediums for messages that could be used.  You could do something as quick as just typing Happy Birthday in an email or text, send an e-card, take a short video of yourself/your student wishing the Birthday boy/girl Happy Birthday and either email it, text it or post it on Facebook, post a gif birthday greeting on Facebook, drop a card in the mail, or whatever else you can come up with that I can’t think of right now.

The point here is to treat these “Most Important Days of the Year” as the most important day of the year. My heart breaks for our students and everything they have lost because of the happenings in the world this past year, and as a mom, I want to do whatever I can to “Make Every Day the Best Day Ever!” as Zack reminds me every day.

The form to sign-up for the Keep In Touch Birthday Club is below. This is open to all past and current students of Lutz and I am also opening it up for teachers and staff to join, because I know that Zack loved wishing his teachers and the staff at Lutz Happy Birthday when he learned it was their special day.

Feel free to contact me with any comments of suggestions at dukicinclan@gmail.com.

Thanks so much,

Lisa Dukicin, Keep In Touch