With the holiday season here, students are enjoying the activities that have become traditional in their lives.
“Winter is a very busy season for us, so we don’t participate in as much as I did when my brother and I were kids, but we do have a few traditions. One thing I always count on is a trip to the harbor to walk around and see the lights, which we did long before we ever moved here. When my little brother is here, I like coming up with fun things for our Elf on the shelf to do, though since there won’t be any littles for a majority of the month, it’ll probably just wait on the tree. Probably one of my favorite days of the year is when my mom, my aunt, and I head to Independence for a big shopping trip. We get a yummy drink or some good food, and I love walking by everything for a day and thinking of ways I can spin the items I see into something uniquely meaningful for someone else,” junior Aleah Minks said.
As times change, so do traditions for convenience.
“When I was really little, all the ladies in my family would go out to the mall for a whole day and do Christmas shopping together. It was really fun and I wish we still did that. Nowadays though, my family mostly uses Amazon. I don’t do a whole lot of gift buying since you kind of need money to buy things, and I am broke. But if I DID buy things, I would probably use Amazon too. It’s convenient,” junior LilyAnn Valentine said.
Sophomore Jenna Gerken’s preparation for Christmas Eve consists of a Nerf gun fight.
“On Christmas Eve, my family all tries to stay up late, and, when I was like six, we all started a tradition where we all have a like five hour long Nerf gun fight ‘til like 3 a.m,” Gerken said.
Christmas Eve is full of traditions for students and their families.
“We usually meet up with our family on Christmas Eve to eat, and open presents. Afterwards, I always read ‘The Night Before Christmas.’ I always make cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning,” RootEd counselor Bobbi Swisher said.
Christmas morning for Valentine means waking up bright and early to open gifts and homemade cinnamon rolls.
“Christmas morning is always fun, especially for my poor parents. My little sister and I get up at 6 AM sharp every single year, and we go downstairs and snoop in our gifts until our parents finally get up. We all open our gifts together and my momma makes her homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast. After that we have a long drive to my grandparents and we spend the day with our extended family. I think it’s really nice. My family and I always make a gingerbread house. My father puts it together and then my sister and I get to decorate it together. It’s a lot of fun, and I really enjoy doing it each year,” Valentine said.
Minks prefers memorable gifts over material ones.
“When it comes to gifts for myself, I am not much of a material person at all. About five different people ask what I’d like, but I can never think of anything. I have enough, I’m content. So while I always get something small to open up on Christmas day, I usually can either expect theater tickets or a trip to the city. These usually mean waiting weeks or months before I get them, but I kind of love this aspect. Looking forward to it for a long time is just as rewarding for me as the actual event itself,” she said.
Christmas time brings decorations out and Christmas movies and music in.
“When we decorate our house we always put on Christmas music, and I listen to it in my spare time around the holidays, too. I really really love Christmas music. It just gets me in the spirit, you could say. In terms of movies, we try to watch at least one Christmas movie every Friday in December leading up to the 25th. We do have a few we watch on tradition. My favorite being ‘A Christmas Story’ I highly recommend it. It’s old but it’s an absolute classic, 10/10,” Valentine said.
Traditions with junior Chloey Brazel during the holiday season include family activities and meaningful Christmas tree ornaments.
“My family loves Christmas, so we have decorations up year round. However, we do shop for gifts and do multiple fun family traditions. We do a silly sock party with a stocking version of white elephant. And, yes, the stockings are filled. We also have new matching family pajamas each Christmas eve to take photos in. We have an entire Christmas tree with ornaments of my dad’s favorite color, and pictures of us with him on it, in honor of his passing. I believe the two best parts of the Christmas season are our choir Christmas concert, and drinking homemade hot cocoa while looking at the snow,” Brazel said.
Another thing that brings in the holiday spirit is the Christmas treats.
“I love all of the holiday sweets! There is also something about peppermint hot cocoa that just tastes like Christmas,” Swisher said.
