The holiday season has just begun here in Cary, North Carolina. My favorite holiday is Christmas, but your's may be another. I'll try to outline some of the ones that are celebrated here and for some of my other global readers - I may miss an important holiday when I try to name them all, but here goes:

• Christmas, the Christian celebration of the birth of Christ, is December 25. It's celebrated with all manner of decorations from a traditional stable complete with manger, baby Jesus, livestock and wise men to live evergreens, fake snow, twinkling lights and bulging Christmas stockings.
• Hanukkah, the "Festival of Lights," starts on the 25th day of the Jewish calendar month of Kislev and lasts for eight days and nights. This year, Hanukkah will begin December 20. The traditions include dreidels, telling stories, singing songs and the lighting of the menorah.
• Kwanzaa is a cultural holiday originated by Dr. Maulana Karenga. It always begins on December 26. Kwanzaa is the celebration of ancestry.
• Boxing Day is a public holiday that occurs the first or second weekday after Christmas. It is honored in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Goodie boxes and money are given to the needy and those in the trades on Boxing Day.

All of these December holidays made me want to keep the Friday's Innovation Inpiration posts in the holiday and gift-giving spirit. So, I sent out this tweet:  

@Antionen, a colleague who works in the SAS Marketing Call Center, sent me this holiday note that she found on a mailing list to which she belongs:

Hi everyone,

We are new to the wonderful world of Middle School, and wondering how teacher holiday gifts are handled….  Since there are no room parents anymore and the kids have 6 teachers (not one or two)- there is no one to coordinate group gifts….

Response:

If you can get a few parents to join you, you can pool your resources to get gift cards. Check with the school's fund raising representative: There is a possibility that you can buy the gift cards through the school's fund raising representative, and then part of the money will go to the school and the scholarships for that school.  

Below is a SAS program to help if you have several teachers that you need to cover. The program allows folks to donate different amounts to each teacher and include money for the scholarship fund.

data family;
  length name $20;
  input name family_id contribution;
  cards;
Lname1 1 5
Lname2 2 3
Lname3 3 50
Lname4 4 170
Lname5 5 120
Lname6 6 40
Lname7 7 50
Lname8 8 38
;;

data contrib;
  length teacher $20;
  input teacher amount family_id;
  cards;
Teacher1 5 1
Teacher2 3 2
Teacher3 5 3
Teacher4 5 3
Teacher5 5 3
Teacher6 5 3
Teacher7 5 3
Teacher8 5 3
Teacher1 5 3
Teacher9 5 3
Teacher10 5 3
Teacher11 5 3
Teacher12 20 4
Teacher13 10 4
Teacher14 20 4
Teacher3 10 4
Teacher4 10 4
Teacher5 10 4
Teacher2 20 4
Teacher15 20 4
Teacher6 10 4
Teacher7 10 4
Teacher8 10 4
Teacher1 10 4
Teacher9 10 4
Teacher12 20 5
Teacher2 15 5
Teacher14 15 5
Teacher3 10 5
Teacher4 10 5
Teacher5 10 5
Teacher6 10 5
Teacher7 10 5
Teacher8 10 5
Teacher1 10 5
Teacher2 10 6
Teacher14 10 6
Teacher1 5 6
Teacher12 10 6
Teacher13 5 6
Teacher12 5 7
Teacher2 10 7
Teacher14 5 7
Teacher17 5 7
Teacher3 3 7
Teacher4 3 7
Teacher5 4 7
Teacher6 3 7
Teacher7 3 7
Teacher8 3 7
Teacher1 3 7
Teacher9 3 7
Teacher12 5 8
Teacher2 12 8
Teacher14 5 8
Teacher17 5 8
Teacher3 2 8
Teacher4 2 8
Teacher5 6 8
Teacher6 2 8
Teacher7 2 8
Teacher8 2 8
Teacher1 2 8
Teacher9 7 8
Teacher10 5 8
Teacher11 5 8
Teacher16 10 8
;;
run;

title "Additional donations for scholarship";
proc sql nocheck;
  create view totals as
    select unique family_id, sum(amount) as total_amount from
      contrib group by family_id order by family_id
  ;
  select totals.family_id, total_amount "Total", contribution "Allocated" from totals, family
    where totals.family_id = family.family_id
      and total_amount <> contribution
  ;
  create view gifts as
    select unique teacher, sum(amount) as gift from
      contrib group by teacher order by teacher
  ;
  create view from as
    select teacher, name from contrib, family where
      contrib.family_id = family.family_id order by teacher
  ;
quit;

title "Total gift amount per teacher";
proc print data=gifts;
run;

Here is the output:

Thank you so much to Chris Hemedinger for his help with this post!