With the holiday season beginning, the images of family gatherings, shopping and eating excessive amounts of food frequently come to mind. One thing that will always remain regardless of your holiday season traditions (or lack thereof), is the rivalry between which holiday is better: Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Junior Naomi Sandquist prefers her family’s Thanksgiving traditions over Christmas ones.
“[Thanksgiving] is very centered around the people, where Christmas is always about traveling and seeing the right people,” Sandquist said. “Thanksgiving is about inviting everyone in, eating together and enjoying each others’ company.”
Even though Sandquist prefers Thanksgiving, she still holds some Christmas traditions close to her heart.
“When I was little, we did this thing called Shepherd’s Night Out,” Sandquist said. “We would dress up as shepherds, and have a picnic by our Christmas tree and have a scavenger hunt with people from the nativity scene. After, we would sleep in our living room.”
Junior Cody Hulstein, on the other hand, prefers Christmas to Thanksgiving.
“Christmas just has more to it,” Hulstein said. “When you think about Thanksgiving, it is mainly just football and a meal. With Christmas, there’s so much more.”
Hulstein sees Christmas as a time with a lot of activities going on.
“You go outside, all the kids are playing together, you do activities, like sledding, you eat, and presents,” Hulstein said. “It feels like Thanksgiving is more like a meet-and-greet.”
Although Hulstein loves the Christmas traditions he prefers to only hear Christmas music during the actual month of December.
“When December begins it is okay, not a minute before December 1st or a minute after December 31st,” Hulstein said.
Sandquist believes that people should hold off listening to Christmas music until Thanksgiving has passed.
“The day after Thanksgiving, feel free to listen to it all you want,” Sandquist said.
Junior Cosmin Colta also prefers Christmas but for different reasons.
“In Romania everyone comes home, people try to have as many people around,” Colta said. “It usually involves a lot of food and caroling.”
This year Colta will stay in Orange City over Christmas break and hopes to see some caroling, his favorite Romanian Christmas tradition.
“We have very traditional Christmas music, but here in the U.S., it’s new every year,” Colta said.
Colta realizes Christmas here is very different from Romania, but he still looks forward to the holiday season in Orange City.
“Christmas here is very religious, maybe because it’s in a small town,” Colta said. “They put a tree and decorations in the house. At home we usually just put a tree up.”
No matter what traditions students prefer, all have agreed on the motives behind the holiday season.
“It sounds really cliché but family, because I enjoy getting to spend time with them even if it’s just driving in a car, cooking or hiking,” Sandquist said.
