At the heart of every family is a tradition

“ At the heart of every family tradition is a meaningful experience.” All families have different holiday traditions. Some traditions are based upon religion others are based purely on the joys ancestors have found in a specific holiday event.

Holiday traditions can be anything that is held near and dear to a family. Some go cut down a christmas tree, others look at Christmas lights, and one of my family’s favorite is baking cookies.

Aurora High School senior William McGhee expresses, “ Baking cookies around the holidays has always been a huge tradition in my family. No matter what, we always find time to bake with my grandma around the holiday. This is something I look forward to each year.”

Another student, Freshman Ava Ryncarz explains, “ I have so many traditions with my family, but nothing beats baking with my grandma every year.”

Like all over the world Aurora High School has a wide variety of traditions that families take part in during the holidays. However a surprising amount of students here at Aurora find baking to be one of their traditions.

Junior Allyson Devins explains, “

Around 78% of Aurora students stated that baking holiday cookies is one of their most dear family traditions. Amongst the 22% of students that claimed it was not a tradition, nearly 50% of the same students explained that it once was.

According to Student Colin McNamara he explains, “ Baking no longer seems to be one of our family traditions. When we were young it was; however, with my siblings being much older they are either in college or no longer live at home.”

A common trend of Aurora students was the fact that as time went on and kids got older the tradition of baking slowly got harder and more distant. However, most students in fact miss the tradition that once was very dear to them.

Senior Sarah Nemeth stresses, “ As we get older certain traditions do in fact become hard to keep going. However, looking back I wish some of the traditions that once were a part of my family were fought harder to keep alive.”

Through looking at how Aurora students talk about their family traditions I have come to one conclusion. I have found that it may not be the tradition itself that the student holds near and dear to them; however, it is the time spent with the people they love that allows them to love the holiday spirit.