As the end of the year approaches, so do several holidays, events that bring people together to celebrate through religion, food, decorations, gatherings, and many more.

Because of each family’s different backgrounds and traditions, each person’s holidays can look very different depending on what personal events they choose to do. 

“My family and I usually go to my grandma’s house every Christmas,” sophomore Callie Hogrefe said.

 Other traditions could be small, some things repeated every year that are specific to each group of people. 

“Every year my brother and I switch off putting an angel tree topper at the top of our Christmas tree,” junior Aden Richman said.

These traditions bring people together, especially family and friends that don’t see each other very often, making the time shared together more special.  

“At my dad’s family’s reunion we always do a white elephant gift exchange with weird joke gifts,” sophomore Annika Lindquist said. 

Another large part of the holiday celebration is food. With different cultures and holidays celebrated, there is a large variety of the food people cook and eat. 

“Every christmas morning we will make a big breakfast with eggs and vegetables, bacon, and potatoes before we open presents,” sophomore Jules Romeo said. “We make homemade raviolis with my uncle, aunt, and cousins with a homemade tomato sauce.” 

Food bonds people together in the process of either making or eating the dish. Eating a dish that you’ve eaten your whole life can feel comforting and special, a core memory around the holidays. 

“For the holidays my family and I usually go over to my moms family where we eat traditional salvadoran plates such as panes con pollo, tamales, ponche, and pupusas,” junior Valerie Olayo-Anaya said. “A dish that my grandma and I always make is a fruit salad and arroz con leche.”

Through the combination of traditions and the gathering of loved ones, the holiday season is a special time for many people. 

“My family celebrates Hanukkah so we make homemade latkes together and light the candles every night. We also usually have a party with some other Jewish families that we’ve known since before I was born,” senior Becca Rosenberg said.

With COVID-19 still playing a large role in people’s comfortability gathering in large groups, especially with the presence of older family members, these traditions may have been skipped some years. To try and protect others, some families have not had a “normal” Christmas for some time. 

“We didn’t go to the reunion the last two years and I just spent the holidays with my immediate family,” Lindquist said.

In spite of the challenges faced with the unprecedented dangers of COVID-19, families are returning to normal. 

“My dad is going [to the reunion] but the rest of us can’t make it this year because of conflicts. Hopefully I can go again next year,” Lindquist said.