As the holiday season is creeping around the corner, many people want to get into the Christmas spirit and seek out activities to do. While some people wish to have activities to do with friends and family or by themselves, there are various activities to choose from. Evelyn Neglia,10, said, “My favorite holiday activity is watching Christmas movies with my friends.” Some super great and popular Christmas movies start to show on TV around this time of year; some of them being “Christmas Vacation”, “Home Alone”, and “The Grinch”. All of these are loved family-friendly movies that are a great way to feel the Christmas spirit. There are some movies that aren’t quite as popular and are good to watch to try something new: “A Cinderella Story, Christmas Wish”, “Christmas on Mistletoe Farm”, and “Office Christmas Party”.
Along with Christmas, December includes the holiday of Hanukkah. This year, it will be from December 25th to January 2nd, and this eight-day holiday has many activities to go along with and celebrate. To start, the traditional game Dreidel is played with the four-sided spinning top and players compete against each other for their “currency” (player’s choice but for example, you can use candy, coins, etc.). A popular dish that is usually eaten to celebrate the holiday is potato latkes. A latke is a Jewish cuisine that is a type of potato pancake or fritter. These can be great to make with family or friends and will make memories with this popular and cultural favorite meal.
With Thanksgiving and Christmas around the corner, the desire for a delicious home-cooked meal fills the air. Mark Koppenhafer, 10, said, “ I look forward to Christmas dinners, and the best thing to eat is ham.” While ham is an extremely popular dish, studies from CNBC show that turkey is the most common dish for Christmas. It is really impressive that the world does not get tired of turkey and turkey leftovers after Thanksgiving. Another way to spend Thanksgiving is a holiday favorite called “Friends-giving” which is a play-along the traditional Thanksgiving. Typically for a Friendsgiving, a handful of friends will get together and each bring a separate dish of food for everyone to eat. This is a great way to bond with friends and spend extra free time instead of being bored at home.
During the Christmas season whilst love is in the air, so is the smell of holiday foods. While the basic and known foods are delicious and a holiday favorite, some may want a more challenging dessert to make. Buche de Noel is a Christmas cake shaped like a log and is a great dish for chocolate lovers. Buche de Noel is a chocolate cake rolled with chocolate whipped cream in the middle and decorated with powdered sugar to look like snow on top of a log. Around this season, you can also find gingerbread houses at almost any local store or even online on Amazon. In the packaging of the gingerbread houses, you can typically find icing to assemble your house and some candy you can use to decorate the house. Along with everything inside the packaging, you can buy your own preferences for candy and/or icing. Katherine DeVillisanta, U.S History teacher said, “For me, while I have many fun family events, I look forward to baking Christmas cookies with my mom every year. My daughters participate in decorating gingerbread and sugar cookies. It makes a big mess and takes all weekend, but they are some of the best memories of the season.” True meaning of the holiday season is for friends and family to come together and create these memories.
A Christmas party can serve as a great helping hand in spreading holiday cheer. All of the activities mentioned above can be incorporated into a holiday party, but there are more unique ways to celebrate too. For example in this party, some activities can be holiday trivia, a present scavenger hunt, Christmas charades, and an ugly sweater competition. Along with these games, the party can also have a theme along the lines of ugly sweaters, white Christmas, North Pole, Santa’s workshop, and so much more. These were just a few of many ways to spend the holiday season and help get into the holiday spirit that can be fun for everybody.
