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December 14, 2009
Amanda Nava
When the holiday break rolls around, people pack their bags to visit grandparents, aunts and uncles, mom or dad, whether the trip takes ten minutes or five hours. It doesn’t matter which holiday is celebrated because families usually take the two-week break as a chance to visit faraway family members or even ones that live close to them.
Seeing family is a weekly tradition for some. When the holidays come, there is not much difference in the schedule, besides sharing and unwrapping presents.
This is true for sophomore Vivian Pham. It has been a tradition for her family to meet in San Jose in one of her aunts’ houses on weekends. Her family gathers to talk, eat and grow closer, creating memories that Pham will look back on later in life.
When Christmas comes around the corner, their family tradition doesn’t change. She sees her aunts, great aunts, grandmother and cousins, as usual. The only thing that differs that weekend for the tightly-knit family is that the family plays a round of white elephant, a present exchanging game.
Unlike Pham, not all people have family members who live close by. For sophomore Freshta Pirzada, visiting family in Modesto takes a little more time than it does for Pham. It takes one hour and twenty minutes for Pirzada to visit her two aunts and two cousins. They usually meet up around Christmas to exchange presents.
“The time I spend with family brings me a natural warmth to my heart,” Pirzada said.
After exchanging gifts, Pirzada and her family watch horror movies. Just because it’s the holidays doesn’t mean they have to watch the classic Christmas movies on television.Some students visit family spread across the nation. For junior Ashley Colbaugh, this means traveling from Fremont to Englewood, Tennessee. She commutes by plane for seven to eight hours on breaks and during summer vacations to visit her dad or her mom, depending on which parent she is living with that year. This year, Colbaugh is visiting her father whenever she can, which is usually during extraneous breaks from school.
“Actually, I’m really excited to go to my dad’s this year. I’m looking forward to see him, all of my grandparents and my friends from school!” Colbaugh said.
With Black Friday and now Black Saturday sales, people forget that holidays aren’t about the material things. It’s about spending time with family and creating memories that people will appreciate long after the holiday season is over.
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