Glenelg High's Unique Holiday Traditions
By: Aiden Coleman and Bell West
The holiday season is a time of nostalgia for many around the world. Millions of people celebrate their respected holidays by honoring and carrying on family traditions.
Food is one of the most common ways traditions are upheld among Glenelg students and staff. Some students, like sophomore Lily Wilpon, only eat appetizers while decorating the Christmas tree with her family. Other students follow or make homemade holiday recipes like gingerbread, fruitcake, or even Christmas crack (saltine cracker candy), according to one senior! But some traditions are a bit more sentimental.
Every Christmas, assistant principal Sandra Suber and her family get together and hold a homemade, authentic, and delicious Jamaican Christmas breakfast. The tradition started when Suber’s uncle got up one Christmas morning in his pajamas and began making his own Jamaican food.
“We’ve been doing it since I was a teenager. [I] think I was around 13 at the time,” Suber recalls. “That was almost 45 years ago!”
Suber said her family would all meet at her uncle’s home early in the morning. All of them would still be in their pajamas as they would pile in the car and make the multi-hour drive. And when they arrived, they were always greeted with love.
“It was so much fun,” she reminisced. “In every room in the house everybody would just be having a good time. My uncle would cook everything and it was a time to catch up with everyone and then we started inviting friends and we would just have a ball. Sometimes we’d end up in the kitchen helping and sometimes we wouldn't even eat dinner because we were so full from breakfast!”
Another common tradition among Glenelg students is watching holiday movies. With so many movies to pick from, everyone seems to have their favorite. Junior Sebastian Wilding and others like to spend their Christmas Eve nights watching their favorite, Diehard.
Other students can’t just pick one, like sophomore Skylar Simms, who spends her Christmas Eves on a Christmas movie marathon with her mom.
“It feels really good that I get to spend time with my mom since we’re both always really busy,” Simms said.
Having a tradition like this to share lets her reconnect with her mom during the holidays, when otherwise she might not have the time.
“It’s nice because I’m getting older and I’m starting to do my own thing but it feels good being able to come together with her and watch movies,” she reflected.
In addition to binge watching movies and TV shows, another common tradition among students is playing games with friends and family.
One game played among some students is a Korean paper game named Ddakji, where one player throws folded paper onto the opposing player’s paper tiles in an attempt to flip them over. Whoever flips over the most paper tiles wins.
Another tradition is one from Germany, where a ceramic pickle is hidden somewhere within the Christmas tree, and siblings or family members race to find it first. Whoever finds it first gets an extra gift from Santa.
Food, games, and movies are all common genres for traditions here at Glenelg. But what about the ones that don't fit in those categories? Some Glenelg students have their own ways of celebrating the holidays. Senior Alex Patrone, for example, takes pictures of his pets and turns them into cookie cutters. But others like sophomore Sasha Mitchell, go a little further than that.
Every year at Christmas, Mitchell and her family go to the pet store to buy a fish. The family has been doing this tradition for years and Mitchell says it's something she looks forward to every year.
“My mom found an empty fish tank at her job and she wanted us to have a little fish tank so she brought it home,” Mitchell said. “My dad went to the store on Christmas and got me and my siblings a pet fish and it just kind of became a tradition after that.”
Mitchell says that the tradition began when she was only three, but it’s one of her favorite traditions of the holiday season. The family continued this tradition so long that at one Christmas, Mitchell said the family had somewhere between 8-10 fish!
It was a lot of responsibility but Mitchell says having siblings made it easier to manage and even strengthened her relationship with her brothers and sisters.
“It made me feel closer to my siblings because we got to care for them [the fish] together,” Mitchell said. “I would definitely want to carry that tradition to my kids, as it’s always been something I look forward to every year. I would want my kids to have the same experience of excitement, too.”
Regardless of how different our traditions are, most have one thing in common: we spend the holidays together, with family and friends.
Food is one of the most common ways traditions are upheld among Glenelg students and staff. Some students, like sophomore Lily Wilpon, only eat appetizers while decorating the Christmas tree with her family. Other students follow or make homemade holiday recipes like gingerbread, fruitcake, or even Christmas crack (saltine cracker candy), according to one senior! But some traditions are a bit more sentimental.
Every Christmas, assistant principal Sandra Suber and her family get together and hold a homemade, authentic, and delicious Jamaican Christmas breakfast. The tradition started when Suber’s uncle got up one Christmas morning in his pajamas and began making his own Jamaican food.
“We’ve been doing it since I was a teenager. [I] think I was around 13 at the time,” Suber recalls. “That was almost 45 years ago!”
Suber said her family would all meet at her uncle’s home early in the morning. All of them would still be in their pajamas as they would pile in the car and make the multi-hour drive. And when they arrived, they were always greeted with love.
“It was so much fun,” she reminisced. “In every room in the house everybody would just be having a good time. My uncle would cook everything and it was a time to catch up with everyone and then we started inviting friends and we would just have a ball. Sometimes we’d end up in the kitchen helping and sometimes we wouldn't even eat dinner because we were so full from breakfast!”
Another common tradition among Glenelg students is watching holiday movies. With so many movies to pick from, everyone seems to have their favorite. Junior Sebastian Wilding and others like to spend their Christmas Eve nights watching their favorite, Diehard.
Other students can’t just pick one, like sophomore Skylar Simms, who spends her Christmas Eves on a Christmas movie marathon with her mom.
“It feels really good that I get to spend time with my mom since we’re both always really busy,” Simms said.
Having a tradition like this to share lets her reconnect with her mom during the holidays, when otherwise she might not have the time.
“It’s nice because I’m getting older and I’m starting to do my own thing but it feels good being able to come together with her and watch movies,” she reflected.
In addition to binge watching movies and TV shows, another common tradition among students is playing games with friends and family.
One game played among some students is a Korean paper game named Ddakji, where one player throws folded paper onto the opposing player’s paper tiles in an attempt to flip them over. Whoever flips over the most paper tiles wins.
Another tradition is one from Germany, where a ceramic pickle is hidden somewhere within the Christmas tree, and siblings or family members race to find it first. Whoever finds it first gets an extra gift from Santa.
Food, games, and movies are all common genres for traditions here at Glenelg. But what about the ones that don't fit in those categories? Some Glenelg students have their own ways of celebrating the holidays. Senior Alex Patrone, for example, takes pictures of his pets and turns them into cookie cutters. But others like sophomore Sasha Mitchell, go a little further than that.
Every year at Christmas, Mitchell and her family go to the pet store to buy a fish. The family has been doing this tradition for years and Mitchell says it's something she looks forward to every year.
“My mom found an empty fish tank at her job and she wanted us to have a little fish tank so she brought it home,” Mitchell said. “My dad went to the store on Christmas and got me and my siblings a pet fish and it just kind of became a tradition after that.”
Mitchell says that the tradition began when she was only three, but it’s one of her favorite traditions of the holiday season. The family continued this tradition so long that at one Christmas, Mitchell said the family had somewhere between 8-10 fish!
It was a lot of responsibility but Mitchell says having siblings made it easier to manage and even strengthened her relationship with her brothers and sisters.
“It made me feel closer to my siblings because we got to care for them [the fish] together,” Mitchell said. “I would definitely want to carry that tradition to my kids, as it’s always been something I look forward to every year. I would want my kids to have the same experience of excitement, too.”
Regardless of how different our traditions are, most have one thing in common: we spend the holidays together, with family and friends.