As the season turns to winter, there are many holidays to celebrate in different ways. At BHS fourth hour, the Student Leadership, Diversity Council, Sources of Strength, Advanced Marketing, and Writing for Publication classes celebrate the winter holidays. These classes are full-year electives that are only offered during fourth hour and serve various roles within the school community.
Student Leadership is a class that plans activities for the school, like dances, spirit weeks, and pep assemblies. To celebrate the winter holidays, they are doing a Secret Santa gift exchange, where everyone draws a name out of a hat and has to get that person a gift. Laila Miller, a senior and the president of Student Leadership, said that it is one of their class traditions and something she really looks forward to. When asked what her favorite part of doing it was, she responded, “It brings the class together, especially the people who aren’t as close.” Miller explained that before someone reveals who they have, they say a little blurb about their person, which adds to the suspense of the reveal. Even though their class tradition is Secret Santa, Miller added that if she could pick something else to do, she would want to do cookie decorating with the class. Overall, Miller said she enjoys celebrating because “it is a fun thing to do before we go off for break, and it helps with the class community.”
Diversity Council promotes school-wide inclusion and awareness about different cultures. In an interview with Brooke Konior, she explained that as a class, they don’t really do anything to celebrate the holidays; however, for Thanksgiving, they set up and ran Culture Fest. “Culture Fest is when everybody comes together, and we appreciate different cultures by trying things like different foods from them.” When asked what her favorite part of it was, she said she liked it when they did the different styles of dancing. Even though they don’t do anything to celebrate as a class, she said that she enjoys putting on Culture Fest because it brings together more people than just their class, while simultaneously boosting diversity.
The class Sources of Strength uses campaigns to promote parts of their wheel, like making posts on social media and putting up posters in the hallway, and provides resources for mental health. The Sources of Strength Wheel is the different sources that a person can gain strength from when they need it, like talking to someone they trust or going for a walk. To celebrate the holidays, Senior Emmy Warner said that they celebrated Thanksgiving rather than the winter holidays. “We did a friendsgiving where everyone brings in food, and we made a big table and ate together as a class,” she explained. She added that a bonus of it was that she could do whatever she wanted for lunch, because she had already had a good meal in her fourth hour. Warner said, “My favorite part about it was hearing about everyone’s day and sharing about mine while we ate, and overall it was just a lot of fun.”
Advanced Marketing is a class that runs The Bear, the BHS school store, and also participates in DECA. Senior Lola Burns said that when it comes to celebrating the holidays, they don’t have any traditions, but they do pick something to do each year. “During the weeks we’re all in our different departments and all working on different things, so it is a good time to come together as a group and have the whole class be with each other,” she explained. Burns also added that since this is a larger class than usual, they are going to do an activity like making gingerbread houses, where they get into little groups and decorate them, rather than a gift exchange, which they did last year. She said that she was excited to see what everyone comes up with when making the gingerbread houses, and looking forward to having fun as a class. “I love doing a group bonding event with the class and being with my friends.” Said Burns.
Lastly, Writing for Publication, the class that writes the school’s newspaper, is celebrating the holidays by doing a Secret Santa gift exchange. Former Journalism student Scarlett Buick, a senior, explained that it is a class tradition. “We always had a holiday party before break, and it’s so fun because you get to bond with your class through gift giving.” She added that she always looked forward to seeing who had her. “Before you say who you have, you describe them and who they are as a writer,” Buick explained. Buick said that last year they started a new tradition: a potluck-style meal. She explained that even though she loves gift giving, she really enjoyed this and would do it again because she loved having a meal as a class.
Even though there are many ways to celebrate the holidays, each class had one thing in common: they all got to know each other and bond more. Whether it is through a meal or gifts, doing something fun as a class brings everyone together and in the holiday spirit!
