Every year, we go over my Italian grandmas house on Christmas eve. The whole family comes, about 30-40 people. We do the traditional Italian dinner of the 7 fishes, everyone brings a different dish. All of the cousins make gingerbread houses and we wait till 12:00 to open presents. The Seven Fishes is part of the Italian-American Christmas Eve celebration, it’s supposed to symbolize fasting on Christmas eve, by only eating fish, and then eating meat on Christmas day. but we just have it as a tradition and add a bunch of fish dishes along with everything else

Senior, Jenna Potter

Photo by Jenna Potter

I’m German, so each year, we open our stockings on December 6th for St. Nick’s Day. We also do the “Christmas Pickle” which is when the last ornament to be hung up is a pickle, and the first kid to find it, gets an extra gift for Christmas. This basically starts off the Christmas season in my house and I look forward to it each year

Junior, Kylie Peregoy

Photo by Kylie Peregoy

On the first Saturday of December everyone on my mom’s side of the family comes over to my house to make a lot of this Italian food called “Scatiata,” which we eat on Christmas at my Aunt’s house. I remember when I was younger we used to make homemade pizza with the leftover dough at my grandma’s house.

Junior, P.J. Osheske

Photo by P.J. Osheske

My cousins & I have a huge sleepover on Christmas Eve and on Christmas morning we all open presents together. Before my cousins were born, my aunts, uncles and grandparents slept over and would watch my sister and I open presents because we were the only kids in the family. But, when my little cousins were born, we started going to the house who had the youngest kids.

Senior, Katie Wright

Photo by Katie Wright

Every year on Christmas, my mom makes crepes for breakfast with blueberry sauce and we make pignoli cookies with my grandma. One time, my mom suggested she make something else for breakfast and my whole family got mad at her.

Sophomore, Sydney Bacon

Photo by Sydney Bacon