Students at Marymount have different ways and traditions for celebrating the holidays. In my family, we go to my maternal side of the family to celebrate Christmas. We make tamales as a family for Christmas every year. For New Year’s my family eats twelve grapes at midnight and for each grape we eat we make a wish.

Chloe R. ‘26 and Jessie R. ‘26 perform at The Music Center on Christmas Eve every year through their choir. (They have even sung with their choir on the news: KTLA 5). They have a fun little competition with one another; they like to keep their gifts a secret and when they unwrap their gift they like to see who gave the other twin the better gift. They open all of their gifts on Christmas Eve.   

Other families like Valentina A. ‘26 travel to see their family for Christmas. She goes to Portland every year. While there, she cooks with her family. Every year they make traditional Italian cookies. For New Year’s she goes to Lagoona Lake with her family and her family friends. They stay at her family friend’s house.  

Sophie E. ‘25 spends Christmas with her intermediate family. Similarly to  Valentina, she also makes a family cookie recipe every year. Every Christmas Eve they get cozy and watch Christmas movies together. The next morning once they have woken up they will see all their gifts wrapped in a single color and each sibling has their own color so they know which gift is for whom. This was Santa’s idea so there are no arguments in the house.

Janella H. ‘24 celebrates Christmas every year with her family. They make all different kinds of Filipino food to celebrate this holiday. She receives gifts from her loved ones too. 

Students at Marymount all celebrate the holidays in different ways, but one thing we all do is spend time with our families which is the most important thing of all. The holidays are meant for students like us to take a break from our studies and rewind for a bit to spend time with the people who are closest to us.