Holiday traditions and cuisine vary tremendously between students at Drake, but they all have one thing in common: family.
Drake students are sharing their family traditions for Christmas and Thanksgiving over the holiday season. While some have more classic traditions, others have unique variations on the traditional holiday season, including cuisine.
“Holidays have always been really interesting in my house” Catalina Sandiego, a first year at Drake, said.
“My mom is from Slovakia and my dad is from Mexico, so we always had a really cool combination of foods. My thanksgiving meal doesn’t have a turkey or mashed potatoes, but we’ll do a goose, fried rice, spam musubi, and like, any Mexican food that anyone is craving at the time. It’s pretty untraditional,” Sandiego said.
While students like Sandiego have an atypical holiday season, others are enjoying a more regular holiday season.
“Every year for thanksgiving we finish cooking, we clean up, and we go off in our separate ways for two hours and then we put up the Christmas tree. The second Christmas is done, at like 12:01, we take down the Christmas tree” Olivia Klassen, a junior at Drake, said.
Another student, April Cunningham, reminisced about the food available during the holidays.
“A lot of family members a good at making general foods, but pies especially. My favorite is pecan, but the classics are apple and pumpkin.”
Other students, like Claire Epperson, don’t cook during thanksgiving at all. “Our family usually goes out to eat. It’s not very traditional, but my parents don’t like cooking. It works for everyone because it’s just a really stress-free meal, and everyone can spend time with each other.”
For everyone, however, Thanksgiving is a time for family and spending lots of time with them. Some students, like Kevin Haller, don’t have big thanksgiving plans but just hang out with their family instead.
“I didn’t go to any big thanksgiving events with my extended family this year, I kind of just hung around with my parents. It was nice to just hang out at home with my family.” said Kevin Haller.
While some students still have a traditional, action-packed Thanksgiving with many family members, plenty of Drake students are just hanging out with their family at home.
As the holiday season grows closer, students are currently gearing up for finals before the semester ends.
