Midvale, UT: As the snowy season rolls in, the Hillcrest Huskies are getting ready to party. Students celebrate a wide range of holidays, each with their own unique traditions.
Vedha Jaiganesh follows the Hindu religion. Hindus observe a beautiful celebration as winter approaches. “In either late October or early November, there’s a festival called Diwali,” Jaiganesh says. “It’s a festival of lights. We light up lamps and keep them outside our homes. We make sweets and we pray. It goes on for five days. I think of it as a way to spend more time with your family.”
Another tradition with ties to India is the holiday of Sankranti. “In January, you have to give everyone 13 of something,” Srivalli Kundojjala comments on her family’s Sankranti practice. “Basically, you get 13 people the exact same gift. Then, you invite them over to your house, throw a basic party for them, and give them the gift. Then, you get the second person over and you throw a party for them.”
Christmas is the most common holiday recognized among Hillcrest Huskies, though many students celebrate it in different ways. “My family does a Christmas scavenger hunt,” Amiah Rogers says. “We get a note on the Christmas tree that leads all the little cousins around the house. At each place there will be another clue. Then, all of our presents will be found in a different spot, like on the balcony or under the bed.”
Daniel Pia, a Spanish teacher at Hillcrest High School, has his own childhood tradition. “When I was a kid, we used to go to a store in Pasadena, California, called Stats,” Pia recalls. “They had Christmas ornaments of all different kinds, shapes, sizes, and colors. Our family tradition was before Christmas, we would all go down to this store and we would select a new Christmas ornament every year. We would use those to decorate our Christmas tree. When my sister and I finally grew up and were ready to move out, our parents gave us all the ornaments that we’d selected over the years to decorate our own Christmas tree.”
Another student, Lily Moody, partakes in a Christmas practice that’s popular among many families. “It’s called Elf on the Shelf. You take a little doll elf and you move it around the house anytime no one’s looking. He can do little tricks and likes to play games on everyone because he’s mischievous. He’s supposed to watch over you and tell Santa what you do.”
Hillcrest has a very diverse community, so there are many more holidays honored throughout the school. “I’m Jewish, so we celebrate Hanukkah instead of Christmas,” one Husky says. “For eight nights we get presents and we light candles on the menorah. The dreidel’s also really fun. It’s kind of like a spinning top gambling game.”
Bee Curtis’ family has German and Scandinavian roots, which they recognize with their own winter traditions. “We celebrate a holiday called Yule. It’s a Nordic holiday, and it’s pretty similar to what a lot of people celebrate with Christmas. We typically celebrate it around the 20th of December,” Curtis notes. “We make a huge dinner, we offer it to our gods, and we spend time with our family. Then we have a gift exchange. I would probably say my favorite part is the closeness that it brings with the family. It’s a time that we can set aside all of our arguments and differences, and we can just embrace it.”
