Holiday Traditions

Most students at Kenmore West celebrate something during the winter season, whether it is anything from Christmas to Kwanzaa, and I wanted to find out what you do during these holidays. So, what are your traditions? Is it putting up a Christmas tree, digging into warm tamales, or bringing out a menorah? No matter what you do to celebrate this festive time, the heart of the season is the bringing together of family and friends.

The question is, what do people do during their winter holidays? I sent out a form asking every student at Kenmore West just that, and you told me all the things you do in the wintertime. I tried my best to include every popular winter holiday in New York, including a few others that were added by students.

Out of 84 students who filled out the form, 96% celebrate Christmas, which is an overwhelming number. There were plenty of traditions people celebrated but the three fan favorites were as follows. 35 people said that celebrating with their friends and family was the best part of Christmas, 32 thought that opening presents was the best part, and 18 loved putting up their Christmas decorations.

Now, some honorable mentions include white elephant, baking cookies, and Christmas Eve dinner. There’s lots of Christmas cheer this year and plenty more traditions than the ones I listed.

If you are looking to adopt some new traditions this season, here is one you can try! The White Elephant game is similar in some ways to Secret Santa, as every person playing buys an individual gift for the game. However, it has some differences. There are many different ways to play, but for the sake of consistency, I will be explaining the “official rules.” whiteelephantrules.com

In the White Elephant gift exchange, 1) each player brings one wrapped gift, whether it is a serious gift or something funny is up to the player, and adds it to a community pile. 2) The players draw numbers from the hat, which determines the turn order. 3) Players sit in a circle around the gifts, and the player who drew the number 1 will pick out a gift and open it. It then moves to the next player, who can choose to either steal someone else's gift or pick one from the pile. This continues for three more turns until everyone has a gift. If you are interested in playing this game, check the sources list at the bottom for the full rule set.

Next up is Hanukkah, or Chanukah: while there aren’t many students at Kenmore West who celebrate it, it’s a very interesting holiday with plenty of lovely traditions.

The three favorite Hanukkah traditions are lighting the candles, eating latkes, and Hanukkah prayers.

I’m sure many are familiar with the popular Hanukkah game, Dreidel https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/how-to-play-dreidel, whose rules are pretty simple. Each player starts with around 10-15 game pieces, usually pennies. As every round starts, each player adds one game piece to the pot, and when it’s your turn, you spin the dreidel, and depending on what you get, you either take from or add to the pot. You repeat this until one person has everyone’s game pieces, meaning they’ve won the game.

The last holiday I’ll mention is Ramadan, and while it wasn’t originally mentioned in the form sent out, multiple students made sure it was included in this article. From the responses we received, the best Ramadan traditions are fasting, spending time with family, and the dinners cooked after fasting ends.

There aren’t specific games anyone mentioned playing during Ramadan but simple card or board games would suffice. 

There are plenty of holiday traditions celebrated throughout the school and throughout the world, and I’m so glad that you shared them with me. Happy Holidays, enjoy winter break!