We sincerely hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving Holidays, and took the time to remember how fortunate we all are...
Hold on to your hats...the Holiday Season has officially begun!

Speaking of the holidays...let's remember our support staff this giving season. See below for how to remember them.

Our Briarlake love and support have helped two families through tough times this year. Read below for details.

Individual pictures are in! Yeah!! Let's hear it for Nicole Spiro!!! See below for details.

Check out the easy and fast way to raise money for our school below.

Our Lost and Found rack is crazy! Please claim lost and found items before December 11. All unclaimed items will be donated to boys and girls at a school in need.

Put December 10 on your calendar...pizza Spirit Night. Details below.

Our November Beaver Bulletin is located on the home page of the Briarlake PTA Website.

Holiday Musical--What a show!

Thank you to Ms. Jessica Goodwin for putting on one amazing Holiday show! It truly is "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year"!

Thank you to all our joyous parents and teachers who took the time to organize the performers before and during the show!

Thank you to Heather and Ken Leahy and Mr. Nunn (our hero) who came through in a pinch with a truck and muscles to help transport the heavy risers to the church. You really saved the day!

Thank you to all the students who worked so hard to dazzle us! Your voices helped to get us all in the holiday spirit!

Thank you to the kind and generous guest who let The Grinch use his black gloves.

Heartfelt Thank You from Mrs. Benator's husband

To my Briarlake friends and family...
I cannot thank everyone enough for the support you all have provided to us, not just during Janice's hospitalization and eventual passing, but the following weeks and now months as Sam, Leah and I continue getting used to our new life.
I have heard the term "The New Normal" used in the media recently to describe life in America after the recession of the past year, and I cannot help but think how that term applies to all of us as we come to grips with a world without Janice. But you know what? We will all be fine. The loss will not really stop completely hurting, but I know we will continue to find joy in our lives, joy that Janice would have expected of us.
The support you all have given to me (and each other) in the form of delicious meals, play dates, coffee talks, e-mails, hair bow maintenance, etc. is staggering in its scope and has made all the difference, at least in my life, and Sam's and Leah's. Ringo Starr once sang some 40 odd years ago "I get by with a little help from my friends" and boy was he right.
With much love and thanks,
Seth Benator

The Message of the Holidays

As Mr. Benator so tenderly wrote about how much he and his family miss Mrs. Benator in the section above, we, our Briarlake family, miss her too...Many of us struggle to not be sad, but to be joyful that we knew her...that's not easy.
In a special Thanksgiving marathon, four of our teachers found a way to remember Mrs. Benator in perfect Janice-style. Mrs. Whitney Blackmore, Mrs. Desiree Winburn, Mrs. Christy Kramer and Ms. Kari Cernoch ran together to remember and celebrate their friend.

"We get by with a little help from our friends", too...

Roberts Family Thank You

Dear Briarlake,
We want to thank you for all of the support you gave our family during Quinn's recent transplant. While we're not new to transplants or being the recipient of the wonderful support that the Briarlake community offers (Gage's transplant 2 years ago), we still needed it. And we didn't know how much until we were in the middle of Quinn's recovery.

Thank you for the notes, cards, gifts, prayers and good wishes before, during and after Quinn's amazing kidney transplant.

Julia & Julian Roberts

Easy Fundraising opportunity-reminder

If you are a Georgia Natural Gas customer, please consider registering for their True Blue Schools program. It really is an easy and quick way to bring in "free" money for our school and your child's educational opportunities. Simply connect to the link below and sign up! IT'S VERY FAST! Briarlake will receive $100 a year from each GNG customer. That's a lot of money! And it really adds up. You just need your GNG account number. Remember the more participants, the more money for our school!!!
If you already participate in this program, thank you so much!

TrueBlueSchools

Holiday Collection

It's that time of year again! We are collecting donations for a monetary gift for our support staff - custodial and lunchroom employees. We would like to show them how much we appreciate them and the jobs that they do each day to keep our school in tip top shape and feed our children!
Please consider making a donation. You may send it in with your child in an envelope marked "Holiday Collection". Checks should be made payable to Briarlake PTA.
The deadline will be December 9th. Thank you!

Pictures

The first round of individual packages is finally in! Hopefully they made it home safely. The order forms for the retake proofs are due this Friday morning, December 4th. Please note that if it took this long for the individuals from the first picture day to come in then the individual packages from the retake day will probably not make it in by the Holiday break. I have no control over this; it is taking longer than anticipated to get these orders filled.

Finally, I still have class photos for some classes. If you ordered one and you have not gotten it, please email me and remember that they came in unlabeled so I have been unable to match them with families who ordered them. If you ordered one, you will have to contact me; it will not come to you otherwise. If you have not ordered a class picture but would like to purchase one, contact me to make sure I have one for your class, and put your $12 cash or check to Lifetouch in the Lifetouch box in the front office by this Friday, December 4th. I will send your class picture in from my house on the following school day. {Class pictures for Mrs. Coker's class finally came in corrected as well. I sent that entire batch to Mrs. Coker's class so if you are still waiting on her class picture and you have already paid, contact her directly.}

Nicole Spiro
Briarlake Pictures Volunteer
Nicole Spiro

Pictures guru

Spirit Night--Dec. 10