Holiday box photo art. Made by Kat Tabor.
By Remi Steeves
Students of Lane Community College celebrate a vast range of holidays.
One student, Carson Atkin, explains that he celebrates Dia de Los Muertos, Thanksgiving, the Winter Solstice and Christmas around this time of year. While Thanksgiving is celebrated as a potluck with his friends, the rest are family holidays.
Atkin says his mom has done a lot of environmental work in Central and South America, which has led to his family’s connection with families from that region. He adds he has shared a home with both a family from Guatemala and with one of his mom’s coworkers, who is Venezuelan. Through this, Dia de Los Muertos has become an important tradition in his family’s observation of holidays, especially to “carry lost loved ones,” he remarks.
Atkin mentions that when celebrating the Winter Solstice, which this year falls on Dec. 21, and Christmas on Dec. 25, they are usually combined into one holiday because they fall so close together. The celebration of the Solstice emphasizes the return of light; the Winter Solstice marks the shortest day of the year, and so every day after that gets longer and longer. Christmas is celebrated with the giving of small gifts among family members, usually clothes.
Atkin says last Christmas, he got his mom a pair of blue butterfly wing earrings because her favorite color is blue.
Another student, Sim Nzeku, who is here from South Africa, says he celebrates Christmas and New Year’s, though at home those holidays fall during the summer. His celebrations consist of a gathering of friends and family. Nzeku says that, in his family, Christmas gifts are not exchanged anymore after he and his siblings “have reached a certain age.” During the colder months in South Africa, which are the opposite of those in the Northern Hemisphere, he celebrates Easter.
