‘Tis the Season for Traditions

With a number of winter holidays to enjoy, we love hearing how our Community likes to celebrate. We spoke with a few members of our faculty and staff to find out their favorite seasonal traditions. Jennifer Polimer, Director of Orientation, Community Service & Special Projects and Success & Career Advisor for Early Childhood Education; Dr. Erin Thomas, Program Coordinator of Sport/Fitness Studies and Professor of Sport/Fitness Studies and Biology; and Dr. Rob Lawson, Professor of History and Director of the Honors Program, shared their families’ holiday pastimes.

Jennifer Polimer: “Our family celebrates Hanukkah and Christmas. My favorite part about both of these holidays is the decorating and cooking traditional foods and treats. Lighting the menorah each night and talking about the importance of Hanukkah as a family always brings me such joy. Decorating our Christmas trees (we currently have four) is one of my favorite things to do. Looking at and talking about the significance of each ornament with my son has become so special to me. Giving back is something we value and do as a family so that others can experience the magic of the holiday season.”

Dr. Erin Thomas: “I have a few traditions in my family. Since I am Italian, we do the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve. This means we have seven different types of seafood for our dinner. We also have the tradition of opening one gift on Christmas Eve and hiding Hershey’s Kisses in the Christmas tree. We also used to cut down a fresh Christmas tree every year when I was a kid, and we did it a few years ago with my niece and nephews from California so they could see where we went as kids.” 

Dr. Rob Lawson: “We have two holiday traditions we love in my family. First, we go out and select and cut down our own tree. My family lives in a very rural, wooded area, so there are plenty of trees around for this, and it’s become a special activity for me and my nieces to ‘harvest’ our own Christmas tree. Another fun thing we do, starting a few years ago, is that we decided that supporting local charities was a better, more Christmas-spirited activity than buying each other lots of things. So we take our nieces to the Humane Society animal shelter in our community and bring donations of needed items and then play with the cats. It’s so much more rewarding than the materialistic holiday shopping and the kitties get their needs met. My family, over the years, has adopted four cats from this shelter! Hopefully #5 will be this Christmas.”

Wishing you a safe and happy holiday season, Bulldogs!