Lights twinkling among green garland decorate downtown Plainfield and its nearby neighborhoods. They don’t just exist to celebrate Christmas though. The community observes several unique holidays.
93.5% in a poll of 138 students celebrate a winter holiday, with 13 different holidays being named.
The majority of students celebrated two or more holidays with the most celebrated being Christmas, with a whopping 97.4%, and New Years, with 79.5%.
However, Christmas and New Years are not the only holidays students celebrate, with Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, Three Kings Day, St. Lucia Day, Kūčios, Diwali, and Saint Nick’s Day all mentioned.
Every family or culture has unique traditions for their holidays. Many Christmas celebrating students spoke about their “Christmas pickle tradition”, in which a pickle ornament or otherwise fake pickle is hidden somewhere on a Christmas tree before or after the tree is decorated. “The kid that finds it gets another present,” Sadie Wilmoth, senior, said. Other students speak of the pickle finder getting to open a present early or receiving money.
Another popular Christmas tradition is making tamales with family. Whether that be “baking tamales on Christmas Eve” like Tómas Coleman, sophomore, or like Julius Martinez, freshman, who “makes special dishes, like Guatemalan tamales” with their mothers’ side of the family.
Preparing cultural food is a big holiday tradition for many people with traditional Polish, Mexican, Guatemalan, Italian, Creole, and Jewish cuisine all being mentioned.
Of course Christmas isn’t the only holiday celebrated with fun or unique traditions. Students like Natalie Zulca, freshman, observe holidays like Kūčios, celebrating with “a fast and a large feast together as a family”. Zulca also has a tradition for Dec. 24.
“We clean the whole house, change our bed sheets, and prepare for the feast. We invite family and create at least 12 dishes. None of the dishes have meat. We eat as a family or with friends and set a plate at the end of the table for ancestors to dine with us,” Zulca said. This tradition is to celebrate the Winter Solstice.
Lila Narine, junior, celebrates four different holidays in the winter season: Christmas, Hanukkah, New Years, and Diwali. Narine celebrates Diwali with Mandir, a Hindi prayer service.
In fact, many students celebrate several multi-cultural holidays. There were nine students celebrating both the Winter Solstice and Christmas and five who celebrated both Hannakah and Christmas; on top of this almost every student also celebrated New Years.
Some students mix traditions from different countries.
“We mix traditions from Mexico and the US. So we do secret Santa and then we celebrate Posadas,“ Hector Herrera, sophomore, said.
Many students also spoke about traveling for their holidays. The majority of these were just over state lines to visit cousins and grandparents, but some left the country.
“We usually fly out to the UK to celebrate Christmas with my grandparents. Then we celebrate Hanukkah at home for all eight nights,” Pierce Jones, sophomore, said.
This community celebrates many multi-cultural varied holidays through the winter season.
