How do students of El Rancho spend their Christmas?

For those that celebrate Christmas, not everyone celebrates the holiday the same way. Everyone comes from different households and backgrounds, so not everyone holds the same traditions. Some focus on the traditional ways of celebrating the union of the family while others put their own spin on it. We all might think that Christmas is enjoyed the same way but when looking at it everyone has their own unique way of spending their day.

At El Rancho, many students are looking forward to winter break where they will get to enjoy three weeks of relaxing downtime along with fun holidays. 

Senior Natalie Maciel said, “The tradition that we have is we make tamales the day before. We don’t celebrate Christmas on Christmas day because we get together on [Christmas] eve, wait til its 12 am, and open our presents.” She always looks forward to the anticipation of waiting until midnight to open presents. 

Junior Damian Serrano celebrates very similarly to Maciel, “I celebrate Christmas traditionally with tamales and family and we celebrate [on] Christmas Eve and open the gifts at 12 am.” 

Many that are from Hispanic cultures open presents when the clock strikes 12 am on the 25th.  

“Me and my family usually celebrate on Christmas eve…and one of the traditions we is that we always do a gift exchange like a secret Santa and my mom likes to bake so we usually just eat sweets and we don’t really eat food,” said senior Maria Mendoza. 

A common tradition among El Rancho students seems to be eating tamales or making pozole. Junior Nadine Palmerin says, “My Christmas tradition is that we normally either celebrate it at my house or my cousins. We make pozole and spend time together as a family. We play games like UNO and sequence. It has also become [a] tradition to do it pajama themed.”

Playing games can be a fun way to spend Christmas with family–especially the game UNO.

Senior Vanessa Granado said, “A classic tradition of mine is to make tamales with my mother…[and] we usually do secret Santa with the whole family so on Christmas eve we get together and we do the exchange at midnight.” 

Secret Santa is a game that many enjoy planning during Christmas time, however, families playing this game are not as common to see.

“I always celebrate on Christmas eve and then our Christmas traditions are we always get matching PJs and everybody that like goes to our house for Christmas has to sing a karaoke song,” said senior Vanessa Ruiz. 

Singing karaoke is rare to hear as this is not a common tradition to play on Christmas but definitely something that is interesting to do for a fun night of festivities. 

Senior Regina Avila said, “To celebrate my family gets together on both Christmas Eve and day. Each year we go to someone’s house and have pozole. We’ll play games, watch movies, and spend time together.” 

It is intriguing to find out that not everyone celebrates Christmas at home but instead goes to other family members or a friend’s house.

Students of El Rancho spend their Christmas in many different ways such as waiting for it to be midnight to open presents, making tamales, eating baked goods, and overall enjoying different traditions. 

Christmas may not look the same to everyone but it is interesting to find out how everyone spends such a cherished time with their loved ones.