{"id":17006,"date":"2020-12-15T18:24:02","date_gmt":"2020-12-16T02:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=17006"},"modified":"2020-12-15T18:59:24","modified_gmt":"2020-12-16T02:59:24","slug":"happy-holidays-from-the-howl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/happy-holidays-from-the-howl\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy holidays from The Howl"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Western Howl\u2019s favorite holiday traditions<\/em><\/p>\n

The Western Howl Collective<\/strong><\/p>\n

Every family celebrates the holidays differently, and the staff at The Western Howl are no exception. Though some traditions may be affected by COVID-19 this year, the memories of past celebrations can carry us through whatever this December brings. Here are our staff\u2019s personal family traditions, and we hope this holiday season brings comfort and joy to all.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Stephanie Moschella<\/b><\/p>\n

On every Christmas Eve, my entire family would go to my grandmother’s house to spend the day there. Afterwards, we would go home, open one singular present before going to bed. Then, on Christmas Day, my immediate family would open all of our presents, eat some fast food (usually Taco Bell or Jack in the Box) and then head over to my grandfather’s house. It is always a busy couple of days, but a great way to make it feel like you\u2019re receiving, giving and opening a lot more presents!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Cora McClain<\/b><\/p>\n

For my family, Christmas Eve is taken up by wrapping presents while \u201cWhite Christmas\u201d plays in the background. Come Christmas morning, all that wrapping (and stockings, which we always do first) has been undone, then it\u2019s time for a full breakfast feast. Afterwards, we get ready and zoom down to my great aunt\u2019s house, where the family (10 to 14 of us) gathers often. Following a potluck feast of festive foods, we move upstairs for dessert\u00a0 \u23e4 often the grandchildren serving the grans \u23e4 and open Christmas poppers. When these little wrapped cylinders pop open, a paper crown, little toy or game and joke fly out. The rest of the evening we play the games and read the jokes out loud while wearing our crowns and eating homemade apple pie.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Rylie Horrall<\/b><\/p>\n

On Christmas Eve, my family goes up to my grandparents house (on my dad\u2019s side) and we chat and have a big dinner with some extended family. Then we do gifts before everyone heads home to put their kids to bed. My family and I take shifts in the living room to wrap presents \u23e4 since we can\u2019t do it all at once \u23e4 before going to bed. In the morning, my dad wakes us all up and gives us coffee, then we open our presents before heading to my grandparents\u2019 (mom\u2019s side) house to do the same thing. Then we head home, eat brunch and watch Christmas movies before heading back over there for dinner and games!<\/span><\/p>\n

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Sydney Carpenter<\/b><\/p>\n

During the holiday season, my family has always done one of those chocolate advent calendars that count down the days ’till Christmas. Each year, my dad and I go to our local supermarket and pick one that has the numbers scattered rather than in order, because that makes it a little more challenging to find. At night, my dad and I sit in the living room and search for the hidden number. When I was younger, I was allowed to eat the entire piece of chocolate after we found it; but sharing is caring y\u2019all, it\u2019s the season of giving. Now, when we find it we always split the chocolate in half.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Kyle Morden<\/b><\/p>\n

The holiday season is full of many festivities for my family \u2014 it\u2019s our favorite season. During the first week of December, there\u2019s a birthday for us to celebrate from Dec. 1 to Dec. 10. I\u2019m not entirely sure how our birthdays were lined up like that, but it happened \u2014 at least we can annoy our neighbors by blasting our karaoke machine for more than a week. My family also celebrates Christmas and New Years by having parties at my grandparents\u2019 house; once again, we blast our karaoke machine. Basically, my entire family sings throughout the holiday season \u2014 it\u2019s the best way for us to let it all go after a long and stressful year.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Allison Vanderzanden<\/b><\/p>\n

A few weeks before Christmas, my family goes out to cut down a tree, and we spend the day listening to Christmas CDs and decorating the entire house. On Christmas Day, my parents have always made us wait to open presents until after church and breakfast cinnamon rolls. We all spend the morning opening presents \u2014 my husky included as she loves to tear up tissue paper \u2014 then we usually spend a couple hours setting up our new electronics or playing a new game. We have ham for dinner, but usually skip dessert as my birthday is the following day and my sibling\u2019s the next, and we know we\u2019ll have plenty of cake to get through.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Natalie Dean<\/b><\/p>\n

Besides the normal stockings and tree decorating, my family comes together through cooking, normally for big holiday dinners. We\u2019ll make a bunch of dishes through the month, and normally there\u2019s a few people helping cook by cutting vegetables or making sure the kitchen doesn\u2019t burn down. Some staple menu items include roasts and stews, cornbread or banana bread, carrot cake and pumpkin pie, fried okra and gumbo. My mom\u2019s birthday is mid-December and we celebrate as a family and make sure it feels special but distinct from Christmas Day. For Christmas Eve, we relax with hot cocoa and each open one gift. At some point, I make my brother help me bake cookies for Santa. We wake up early on Christmas Day to grab coffee and make breakfast, and then open presents together.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sean Martinez<\/b><\/p>\n

On Christmas Eve, my mom and I sit down and watch a new movie that neither of us have seen, followed by \u201cA Charlie Brown Christmas.\u201d Then on Christmas Day, my mom and I have our own little gift exchange, before heading over to my grandma and grandpa\u2019s house to celebrate with the family. Every year, it\u2019s me and Mom, my grandparents, my uncle and my cousins. We always open our presents around noon, have lunch and spend the rest of the day just chatting with the TV on in the background.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Kiara Wehrenberg\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

The holidays usually always look a little different every year, but they always include time with the family! Every year would include me, my dad and other family members coming together at my grandmother’s house Christmas Day to eat dinner together and open presents. The Christmas season also includes plenty of movies like \u201cHow the Grinch Stole Christmas!\u201d and \u201cA Christmas Story\u201d with a cup of hot cocoa.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Western Howl\u2019s favorite holiday traditions<\/p>\n

The Western Howl Collective<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":16989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[100,50,449,448,57,154,447],"class_list":["post-17006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-happy-holidays","tag-holiday","tag-holiday-tradition","tag-holiday-traditions","tag-holidays","tag-lifestyle","tag-the-western-howl-collective"],"modified_by":"The Western Howl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}