The Holiday Season: As Reflected By The Springfield Pride

Vincent Gallo
Staff Writer
@VinGallo731

The holidays are that point in the year when one can take a break from the grind and strain of putting forth the effort that each day ceaselessly demands. It is that unique time when everyone can take a breath and step away from the chaos and celebrate in the arms of family and friends until the calendar flips to the New Year. However, that’s still two and a half weeks away, but fear not: there’s nothing that endless hours of studying for finals can’t do to salt the time away, right?

With that being said, there are some intriguing stories of reflection, tradition, and remembrance from around Springfield College to lift your spirits and help prepare for winter break.

“My favorite holiday memory would probably be getting my trampoline,” said Springfield College student Evan Reed. “We used it for two years but we ended up selling it. The safety net ripped off, a couple kids ended up falling off of it and getting injured. [Just] a couple of broken collarbones.”

There are stories that offer a sense of adventure. “[My family] went to go see Lafayette once, the big church with all the crazy Christmas lights,” said freshman Noah Lisewski. “We took a wrong turn down this private street. This guy came out and said, ‘I think you made a wrong turn’ and he had like a gun with him. I was like, ‘we’re in Massachusetts, when did this turn into Deliverance?’”

Conner Wooster recalls the time when his family Christmas tree decided to bail out. “We went to a Christmas tree farm, cut down a tree and got it on the roof of the car,” said Wooster. “We started driving on the highway and it came off. Yes, it almost hit a car.”

In addition to flying Christmas trees, Makena Mueller remembers a rather unusual scenario while visiting her friends for Passover. “I opened up their fireplace and I heard a noise,” Mueller said. “I started freaking out, there was something in there. It turns out they had raccoons in their chimney, they found out like two weeks later.”

The holiday spirit is something that is renewed each year and the memories created never fade. “When I was around 10, we used to go to my uncle’s house for Dashain, it’s a Nepali festival,” said freshman Subash Gurung. “We would always sing the song, ‘Dashain Aayo’ which means ‘Dashain is coming.’ Every time I hear that song I think of the good times I had.”

Sometimes our parents do more than put presents under the tree and prepare phenomenal Christmas dinners. Many go the extra mile to make the holidays flawless for their children. “[Our family] go to my grandparents on Christmas Eve,” said freshman Jason Robinson. “When I was five or six, my cousins and I still believed in Santa, so my dad had a red light on a stick and ran through the woods with it and pretended he was Rudolph. We were all amazed by it.”

The reward of the holidays is waiting for us once we fight through exam week. More good times will be had, and there will certainly be new stories right around the corner.