From Purple Bras to Scorpions

Gift giving sure has changed since the days of the lowly red apple. Today? How about a purple bra. Or an Elvis clock. Or a scorpion under glass. Or a “beautifully wrapped” 14-inch zucchini, grown by a proud student. It’s the time of year when teachers, especially those in elementary school, get all sorts of presents. Some come from overseas, others from a corner discount store--or a mother’s drawer. Sometimes, in their desire to please, youngsters simply grab something from home. One teacher recalls getting “a metal box with some weed still left in there.” The mother was quick to come to school to retrieve it. In other homes, parents stay up late to bake cookies or crochet a muffler, or scramble through a mall for that perfect mug. “I have so many coffee mugs at home,” said one Eagle Rock teacher, “that I don’t use glassware anymore.”

For the record, of course, many teachers say the best gift is seeing their students learn--to love books, for instance. Or receiving a hand-scrawled “thank you” note. But with a little prodding, the stories come out, such as the one from May Arakaki, principal of Logan Street School in Los Angeles, about a colleague who got . . . a girdle. “The child’s mom worked in the garment industry,” Arakaki recalled. “We were young at the time, and we roared with laughter. But now that we’re older we could probably use it.”

Times staff writers Susan Abram, Fred Alvarez, Karima A. Haynes and Duke Helfand, and correspondents Mimi Ko Cruz and Lisa Fernandez asked teachers around the region to recall memorable holiday gifts.

BETH PALLARES

School: Balboa Middle, Ventura

Grade: Seventh

Gift: A magnum of Korbel champagne

“There was a note attached from the parents that said anyone who could put up with their child in the classroom for the number of hours that I had deserves to have an evening of bubbly on them. I thought that was very refreshing in more ways than one.”

CAROL PHILIPS

School: Weathersfield Elementary, Thousand Oaks

Grade: Principal

Gift: Elvis clock

“Well, I’m an Elvis fan and the students discovered that. I got an Elvis clock. The legs move back and forth.”

JUDI GOULD

School: Oak Hills Elementary, Oak Park

Grade: First

Gift: Booklet

“I got a booklet that was covered in wrapping paper and laminated by a parent. But each of the children had their own page with a photo and they wrote the reasons they loved me. One of them read: ‘I love you Mrs. Gould because your [sic] nice and you never screemed [sic] and hugged us when we went home.’ ”

MARCINE SOLAREZ

School: Newbury Park High

Grade: 10th, 11th, 12th

Gift: Holiday songs

“The best I think was when 18 or so debaters--who had graduatedsix or seven years ago--came to my house to Christmas carol for us. They stayed for awhile and had a little reunion. That gift of staying in touch is just so special to me.”

MARY ELSENBAUMER

School: Lincoln, Ventura

Grade: Fifth

Gift: A stuffed piranha

“It was an old, dehydrated piranha mounted on a wooden base. It was a beauty with its mouth wide open.”

WYTERIA PERRY

School: El Cerrito, La Habra

Grade: Second

Gift: Purple bra

“All my kids know my favorite color is purple. It was Christmas 1987, and I was opening gifts in front of the whole class. One of my kindergarten students, Jonathan, gave me a present, all nicely wrapped. I opened it, and there was a purple bra and panties. All the kids were just like, ‘Ooooooooh.’ I could feel myself blushing.”

PEGGY NOISETTE

School: Valley View Junior High School, Simi Valley

Grade: Eighth

Gift: Thank-you note

“A kid wrote out a thank-you note telling me how much he had learned and he put it in a frame. Those kinds of gifts are meaningful because it shows the children took the time to write it out and tell their teachers they helped change their life.”

PENNY BAISLEY

School: Apperson, Sunland

Grade: Kindergarten

Gift: Flute

“The father of one of my students asked his father in Japan to send some special bamboo that he grew especially to make flutes. The work that went into it and the fragile beauty just overwhelmed me. I cried when the father gave it to me, wrapped in silk and tied with ribbon.”

NANCY SCHER

School: Eagle Rock

Grades: Fifth and sixth

Gift: A used handkerchief

“My first year of teaching, I got a used handkerchief. It was washed, but it was out of the wrapping.”

SETH CUTLER

School: Loreto Elementary,

Los Angeles

Grade: Third and fourth

Gift: Cow salt shaker

“I still have on my table a set of cow salt and pepper shakers and a creamer and I have years and years of really bad cologne.”

TIM KUSSEROW

School: Logan Street, Los Angeles

Grade: Second

Gift: Cookie

“Last year, I had a class that was underprivileged and mostly Asian. I was trying to share with them the concept of Christmas and I read ‘The Night Before Christmas.’ There was a picture of the little boy opening a gift. The next day, a kid gave me a wadded tissue wrapped with rope and dropped it in my hand. I was trembling. When I opened it, it was a Christmas gingerbread cookie, decorated by him, with a pin in it. I still have it.”

VANAE EHRET

School: Logan Street, Los Angeles

Grade: Third, fourth and fifth

Gift: Card

“We have a lot of kids who speak English as their second language. Once, I got a card. It was a beautiful card but it said, ‘Condolences on the loss of your loved one.’ ”

MARTY HENTE

School: 3rd Street, Los Angeles

Grade: Fifth

Gift: Death masks

“I had one student bring me a box filled with little masks. I think they were Thailand death masks.”

BARBARA ELSON

School: Coeur d’Alene, Venice

Grade: Preschool

Gift: Books

“We had a little boy who went through his library at home and brought each teacher a book he thought we would like. His parents were separated at that time and he was living on a boat. In better times, his family could once afford books.”

TANIA PASHKOV

School: Logan Street, Los Angeles

Grade: Special education

Gift: Candy

“In special ed, the kids all have food in their pockets and because they understand the concept of giving they’ll give you their snacks, like Gummy Bears with half the head consumed.”

MICHELE DUNNER

School: Garden Grove, Reseda

Grade: Resource teacher

Gift: Stuffed toy frog that croaks “Jingle Bells”

“I bring it out every Christmas.”

BILL MERKELSON

School: 3rd Street, Los Angeles

Grade: Fifth

Gift: Banana magnet

“They know I eat a banana everyday at lunch and they’ll bring me everything banana shaped that’s possible, from cards shaped like bananas to banana magnets. I’m known as Mr. Banana Man.”

BETH OJENA

School: Coeur d’ Alene, Venice

Grade: Principal

Gift: Pink lingerie

“One student’s mom worked at Frederick’s of Hollywood and the family gave me a pink teddy. Great teddy, wrong body!”

SUSAN WEISBAUM

School: Garden Grove, Reseda

Grade: Fifth

Gift: Angel figurine

“I received a very religious figurine--but I’m Jewish.”

CAROL HUSE

School: Logan Street Elementary, Los Angeles

Grades: Third, fourth and fifth

Gift: Makeup compact

“I was teaching sixth grade. I got a compact that has at least 52 iridescent eye shadows with the little pull-out tray of bright rouge because [the kids] think I should be wearing makeup and makeup is what is on their minds at that age.”

LARKIN BROOKS

School: Third Street, Los Angeles

Grade: Third

Gift: Coffee cup necklace

“I got this necklace that was a huge gold chain, and at the end of the chain was a coffee cup with a huge glass gem on top, and on the bottom were the letters HSN for Home Shopping Network.”

LOIS CURRY

School: Logan Street, Los Angeles

Grade: Fourth and fifth

Gift: A matchbox

“I got a matchbox filled with rocks and sprayed with perfume. I also got a miniskirt and I’m 55. I still wear it.”

TRESE SIMMONS

School: Trabuco Elementary,

Trabuco Canyon

Grade: Kindergarten

Gift: Hand-carved wooden pencils and pencil stand

“I had this little boy whom I was tutoring after school, and he hand-carved these pencils and a little stand for me. On the back of the stand he carved, ‘I like you,’ but he spelled it ‘L-I-C-K.’ I’ll keep that gift forever.”

JILL HAWKINS

School: Eagle Rock, Los Angeles

Grade: Substitute

Gift: Lion muumuu

“We had gone on a trip to the zoo and then at Christmas I got an orange, green, and brown muumuu with a giant lion on it.”

VICKI PRELESNIK

School: Handy, Orange

Grade: Fifth

Gift: 14 angels

“We were reading a story about angels as part of a language arts lesson. That Christmas, 14 students gave me an angel--I collect them. Each one matched the personality of each student. There’s one with a football, a funny one, a frilly one. They’re not supposed to bring gifts, but they do, and I cried. . . . They all sit on my bookshelf at home.”

SUSAN BABIT

School: Dixie Canyon Avenue,

Sherman Oaks

Grade: Third

Gift: Handmade quilt

“As a kindergarten teacher about six or seven years ago, I was given a quilt with all the children’s handprints on it and they signed it in their own handwriting. If I get cold when I curl up to read, I put it on.”

LORI DIXON

School: Vaughn Next Century Learning Center, Pacoima

Grade: Second

Gift: Negligee

“I opened up the gift and thought, ‘Oh, this is interesting.’ I didn’t expect it from a child. Everyone said, ‘Oh, does the father like you?’ And I said, ‘No, he’s not like that.’ ”

LINDA SHAPIRO

School: Calvert Street,

Woodland Hills

Grade: Teaches hearing-impaired

Gift: Scorpion under glass

“A few years back, a student gave every teacher in the hearing-impaired department a dead scorpion under glass on a plaque. To this day, no one knows what was meant by the gift.”