This Christmas song was

FEATURES green & gold

13 Wesleyan community celebrates Christmas

Elizabeth Hodges

The Wesleyan community celebrates Christmas in many ways to show their love for Jesus and spend time with their family. Christmas is an important time of year filled with the joy of celebrating the share the joy of birth of Jesus Christ with their families. People spend this time in church services celebrating the birth of Christ, listening to joyous music, making baked goods with their families, and various engagements in the consumerist side of the Christmas holidays. Director of Christian Life Greg Lisson has a more traditional Christmas experience. Throughout the Christmas holiday, he enjoys listening to Christmas songs on Spotify on his TV at home. He like the songs that talk about Jesus the most such as “Oh Holy Night,” “Joy to the World,” and Christmas music by Chris Tomlin. Every year, Lisson and his wife, former Wesleyan biology teacher Megan Lisson, go to visit his family in Chicago. Each year, they go to church for the afternoon candlelight service, then they go to his parent’s house, eat Christmas Eve dinner, and the children participate in the reading of the Christmas story. The youngest child there places the baby Jesus in the manger and a child around the age of ten reads the Christmas story from the book of Luke.

(l to r) Katharine Glover and her daughter junior Abigail Glover enjoy their Christmas decorations.

Glover

iiiiWhile Lisson does enjoy sharing the true meaning of Christmas, he also enjoys doing fun things with his family. He and his cousins get together on Christmas night for game night. They argue and have fun competing against each other. On Mrs. Lisson’s side of the family, each year the family has a gingerbread decorating competition. They have fun spending time together and enjoying Christmas spirit. The Lisson family just had a baby, Harper, so they are still developing traditions. Lisson said, “I know we will have a plan for what we do every year, but we don’t know what it is yet.”

Junior Abigail Glover spends most of her Christmas with her family. After Thanksgiving, her family begins listening to Christmas music. Glover said, “We like Pentatonix.” Glover’s family always makes Christmas cookies each year at some point during the Christmas season. On Christmas Eve, they go to church, and every year they go out to dinner at various restaurants. On Christmas morning, Glover’s family open presents. Then they have lunch with Glover’s grandparents. Glover likes her fake Christmas tree because it helps with her outdoor allergies, which keeps her well from holiday allergies.

As Dean of Students Mary Blalock is newly married so her Christmas traditions have changed over the past year. This year, she and her husband will spend Thanksgiving with her husband’s family and Christmas with her family. This year, Blalock will be going to her husband’s family to a Christmas tree farm the day after Thanksgiving to get a Christmas tree. For Christmas, Blalock and her husband will travel to her parents’ house in Florida for Christmas. On Christmas Eve, Blalock’s family goes to church in the afternoon, and her mom makes a large, delicious meal that they all enjoy that night. They are festive with poppers that have a paper crown, a joke, and a small toy inside. They all wear their crowns and try to guess each other’s jokes. They also open one present on Christmas Eve, usually pajamas, which Blalock’s mom gets everyone, and watch a movie. On Christmas morning, Blalock’s mom makes a good breakfast for everyone. One of Blalock’s favorite meals she makes is shrimp and grits. Then, they all open presents and spend the day together. Sometimes, they join their neighbor’s Christmas party. They have things such as fried turkey and enjoy time with their friends.

Sophomore Jackson Douglas’s Christmas experience center around family. Through the holiday season, the “12 Days of Christmas” is constantly playing in his house. He enjoys having his uncles fly from other states in and hanging out with them. On Christmas Eve, Douglas’s family gathers at his grandparents’ house. They sing Christmas songs, have a nativity scene displayed, and talk about the story of Christmas. On Christmas morning, Douglass and his siblings run downstairs to open presents. After opening presents, his family heads to his grandparents’ house for lunch. Throughout the day, Douglas and his parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins spend time with each other. Douglas enjoys playing board games with his aunts and uncles.

Junior Heidi Hepner has many Christmas traditions she does each year with her family. The Hepner family uses the same advent calendar each year, hanging one ornament on the calendar each day of advent leading up the Christmas. Every year on Christmas Eve, her family makes Christmas cookies and watches a Christmas movie. Then, they go to midnight mass. On Christmas morning, Hepner’s mom always makes cinnamon rolls for her family. Then, they open presents and spend the day together as a family. On Christmas night, Hepner and her family FaceTime her grandmother while Hepner plays “Stille Nacht,” the German version of Silent Night, on the piano. English teacher Dawson Zimmerman has a contrary view of how Christmas should be celebrated. While Zimmerman enjoys the reflection of the candlelight church service on Christmas Eve, Zimmerman dislikes the capitalist, consumer culture that has shadowed the true meaning of Christmas. Zimmerman will not listen to any Christmas music except “Christmas Wrapping” by the Waitresses and “The Day After Tomorrow” by Phoebe Bridgers. Zimmerman has a fake tree that he likes because it is easy to set up, and he sometimes leave Christmas ornaments on the tree from the year before to speed up the tree-decorating process. Zimmerman feels that “Christmas (in America) is a corporate holiday that serves consumerism.” He feels Christmas is about celebrating Jesus in an authentic way with other people. While Christmas is an important holiday in the Christian faith, people in the Wesleyan community have different ways of celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. While Zimmerman rejects the consumerism of the holiday, he finds the holiday a good time for reflection and time with his family. Blalock, Lisson, Hepner, and Glover all enjoy spending time with their families and enjoying the festivities of Christmas.

(l to r) Director of Christian Life Greg Lisson and his wife former high school biology teacher Megan Lisson show their gingerbread house creation. Lisson