Bay Village students share their favorite traditions

The holiday season has arrived, with all of the magic and wonder that make this time of year so special. It is a time for rejoicing, connecting with loved ones and creating memories that will last a lifetime. For the Observer's annual last-issue-of-the-year feature, students from Mrs. Martha Fisher’s third-grade class at Westerly Elementary in Bay Village share favorite family traditions.

The Pine Tree Barn
Christmas cookies, presents, and Saint Nick. Every Christmas our cousins come to our house and we go to the Pine Tree Barn. The trees have ribbons on them to tell you how much they cost. This year we bought a expensive tree. The ribbon was a blue with purple polka dots. My mom did not want to buy an expensive tree but my dad really liked it. My cousins wanted to buy a better tree than us but they bought a tree that was smaller. After we pick our trees, we play with our cousins while my dad and our moms put our Christmas trees on their cars. This year my brother brought a baseball and we played baseball at the Pine Tree Barn field and my team won. After we eat lunch, I always get hot chocolate and then we go on a sleigh ride and sing Christmas carols. My dad forgets some words for the songs. This year he forgot the words to “Jingle Bell Rock.” Sometimes I don't sing. We always have a fun time at the Pine Tree Barn!
– Adrian

Our Family Celebration
Big feast, play games outside with our friends and family, and visit our grandpa, grandma, aunt and uncle! When we are together we share things that we keep as nice secrets. We give compliments to our friends and family and then have a party and have fun. Our Muslim holiday is really sweet with our family and we have so much happiness and eat sweet food. We make a cake and give money for charity. We let people visit in our home. We make a big feast for people we care about. We go to church and walk around the church and have a wonderful ice cream treat. We pray for charity all together. We walk around our house and hold candles and throw scraps of papers everywhere around the house. We throw scraps of paper around the house because we love our family and always play and have fun all the time and care about each other. We celebrate on December 29 and have a party and fast for Ramadan and honor Allah.  
– Aida O.

Family Ornaments
Christmas is here! My family and I set up our Christmas tree after we cut it down. Every year when we go on vacation, we get an ornament for our tree. This year we got an ornament of 2017 on a purple stone. I picked it out. We got the ornament in Delaware. Last year we went to Put-in-Bay and got an ornament of Santa. My dad likes our ornament of a dartboard. One of my favorites is Yoda from Star Wars. Another one I really like is the angel because it was my great-grandmother’s. Our tree is special because each of the ornaments have a meaning to me.
– Logan G.

Christmas with Nature
Hiking, fishing, camping! This is what my family does on Christmas. We save our money and instead of buying toys we go to Hocking Hills. Instead of getting more stuff, we make memories with our grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. The trip gives us the opportunity to have fun in nature. This tradition means a lot to me.
– Jack

Roses for Grandma
Cookies, cakes, and so much more! My family and I love Christmas. This is a tradition that we do. Since 1982, the day my great-grandmother died, we’ve brought my grandmother a bouquet of roses. My grandmother always gets sad near Christmas time because that when my great-grandmother died. In 1982 when my mom was 13, she saved up all of her allowance money to buy my grandma roses and that's when the tradition started. Roses were my great-grandmother's favorite kind of flower. Sometimes the roses are white and sometimes the roses are red.
– Katie R.

A Peacock Christmas
Elves, trees, ornaments! Do you know what is here? Christmas!! On Dec. 17th we go to my Grandma Peacock’s house for Christmas. We put meaningful ornaments on our tree. We give the reindeer oats and carrots. We always get new Christmas pajamas. My Great-Grandpa Peacock comes and watches us open presents in his pajamas. We have two trees, one peacock tree because our last name is Peacock and one normal tree. My mom buys each kid a new ornament. We decorate our tree as a family. Every year my brother Jason puts the star on the tree. At our grandma’s house my grandma puts ornaments on our plates that we eat off and we get to keep the ornaments. We see Santa at my grandma’s house and find our name on his list. At my grandma’s house every person in the Peacock family brings presents for the stocking and under the tree for other members of the Peacock family. We also eat food like turkey, beets, and other foods at Grandma’s house. Our family has a very merry Peacock Christmas!
– Sophia P.

My Chocolate Advent Calendar
All the cookies, all the joy, all the lights! Christmas is here! Every year my family gets a Christmas Advent calendar! But the calendar is not like a normal calendar. It is a chocolate calendar! Each day of December we take one piece of chocolate. But the chocolate is not normal too. The chocolate is shaped like toys! But we do not know what the chocolate toys look like. We have to get the chocolate toys out of the calendar. The chocolate calendar only goes to Christmas Day. Counting down the days to Christmas with the chocolate Advent calendar is one of my favorite holiday activities!
– Birdie K.

Grandma’s Yummy Cookies
Butter, flour, eggs, sugar for Christmas! We bake sugar cookies with my grandma and cousins. My grandma passed away this year so we decided to bake cookies using her recipes. In this way we honor her. We use really adorable cookie cutters like gingerbread man, evergreen trees, Santa, and reindeer. When we start, we roll out the dough with a rolling pin. Put them in the oven and they smell so good. When they come out of the oven, we put them on a cooling rack and let them cool off. After they cool off, we decorate the cookies with cute little sprinkles and frosting that we made. Then on Christmas Eve, we give everybody a cookie. After the party is over we put one out for Santa. Now you know how we bake our cookies.
– Tess P.

Christmas Traditions
Are you looking for holiday traditions? Well you are in luck! I have a lot of traditions to share with you! The first thing is we always put up and decorate our tree on a November weekend. Another thing we do is we always and I am saying ALWAYS hang two pickles. Every time family visits, we exchange gifts on the 27th. Another thing we do is make a gingerbread house. We make cookies on Christmas Eve and once they are still hot we eat one. Yum! We have a big meal for Christmas. We always have beef tenderloin. People stay from 12:00 p.m.-9:30 p.m. Every time, really EVERY TIME, people come over we sing Christmas carols and then play board games or go and watch football, or we mess around in the house like running around. We are out of town on Christmas, so we celebrate on the 27th. We watch old Christmas cartoons. Our family favorite is “Frosty The Snowman.” We have around 20 people who come to celebrate with us. We prepare fun games to play too. Our favorite game is Uno Attack. We have fun traditions to share!
– Andrew D.

My Holiday Traditions
Family, presents, Christmas is here! Every year the kids in my family take turns putting the shining star on top of the Christmas tree. It’s my turn this year. My family visits both sets of grandparents on Christmas. My papa has passed away so I can not see him on Christmas. I love my grandparents. Every Christmas we always play games and Papa was always my partner. We play Jenga, Sorry, Spot It, Fastrack, and Connect Four. We go to the graveyard and give flowers to the ones we lost. All my cousins, parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents come to one place to celebrate Christmas. We have a party and lots of food before we open the presents. We play outside on the porch and have fun. Christmas is all about family!
– Braeden E.

Auntie is Coming for Christmas
Auntie’s coming to my house on Christmas Eve! Let’s have some fun together! First, we eat dinner. My dad makes our dinner! Sometimes he makes mashed potatoes and stuffing and it is so good! Then, we go to church on Christmas Eve. Next, we open gifts from our auntie. We love our gifts! After that, Auntie and I play with the gifts that I got from Auntie! Then we have to go to bed. It’s Christmas! We open our gifts and stockings from Santa and Mom and Dad. Then, we eat breakfast. My dad also makes our breakfast and it is yummy! While we are eating, we enjoy a fire. It crackles and feels warm and relaxing. A few hours later we go to my Mimi and Papa’s house and we eat dinner at their house on Christmas day and Mimi makes our dinner that also is so good! Then we open gifts from our Mimi and Papa. Auntie takes pictures of us opening gifts. I love when Auntie comes and sleeps over and plays with us. It is so much fun I can not wait for her to come this Christmas!
– Addie R.

My Fun Christmas Traditions
Cousins, presents, Christmas trees, and lots of fun! On Christmas Day we open presents and then go to brunch at my grandma’s house. We exchange presents with my family. Then from there we either have a party at our house or my aunt and uncle’s house. We take turns every year. We eat dinner and Santa comes to visit. We get a present, sing holiday songs like “Frosty  the Snowman” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” and see pictures of reindeer and act a song out. Santa tells us stories. We stay up late and have a sleepover with our cousins. We spend the whole week with our cousins and having fun with them. I really like that my cousins drive eight hours just to see us for Christmas. It really makes me happy that they do that. I love that we spend Christmas with my cousins who live very far away. They must love us a lot! I love them a lot! I love my Christmas traditions!
– Sophie P.

My Fabulous Christmas
YAY! Papa and Gram are here to bring us fabulous presents and DECORATE THE TREE with sparkly ornaments and spend the time of the spirit of giving. I always go to Pittsburgh to see my Nona and Papa and I go to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to see my Papa, Gram and my beautiful cousins. Papa always lets us open one amazing gift. We decorate the whole entire house with a beautiful tree and big stockings above the fireplace. Every year I have a fabulous Christmas!
– Max

Decorating The Tree
Glass, silver and gold! Every year my family and I decorate the tree with beautiful ornaments. We use teal pom-poms and red glass ornaments to hang on the tree. This year I named our tree Evergreen. My elves have hid in the tree a lot and we cannot find them for a while. Some of the ornaments are gold and silver birds. My grandma gave me a Hello Kitty ornament that is glass. On the top of the tree is a blush colored star. Our tree has beautiful white lights and green garland and there are white sparkles. Almost everything is red and green. So many different ornaments hang on the tree and there is at least one ornament from everyone in our family. Some of the ornaments are a mouse, a skater, a rabbit and a cat. A lot of the ornaments are from my grandma. Decorating the tree is one of my favorite parts about Christmas.
– Chloe S.

Memory Tree
Gold, silver, glass ornaments. Each year we decorate a tree for our home. Every great smelling evergreen tree we get has a name. This year’s tree is named Ghostbusters! Last year’s tree’s name was Tommy Pickles. It is so nice looking and it is shaped like a perfect cone! When we get the tree we always wait until it’s my mom’s birthday to decorate the tree. While we decorate the tree, we listen to some music. Instead of garland we string popcorn and cranberries on the tree. I like to snack on popcorn while doing it. Almost all of our ornaments tell a story. Some of our favorite ones are the  ones from the Grand Canyon, Mexico, and Kansas. The one from the Grand Canyon reminds me of my road trip across the country. The one from Mexico helps me to remember our vacation at Bahia. The Kansas ornament brings back memories of going to The State Diamond Water Park to hunt for diamonds. This year we are adding a cactus ornament to our tree. Our Christmas tree is filled with love and memories!
– Soren M.

A Happy Christmas
Family, traditions, and lots of happiness! Then lots of family fun with friends. One of my family's traditions is putting a pickle ornament deep in the tree and then we try and find it. Whoever finds it gets an extra present. This is a German tradition. Another tradition we do is gathering at my grandma and grandpa’s house and singing lots of fun Christmas carols. Another tradition is decorating the tree. The last tradition is when we open our presents. We also have a big delicious feast with our family and friends. We stay up extra late because we get to play lots of  games with our cousins. We also go outside and ride on snowmobiles on the snow with our older cousins. Christmas is a time for fun and family.
– Logan V.

Christmas Night
Lots of presents, family, and a Christmas tree. My family goes to my uncle and aunt’s home for Christmas. We eat, play games, and open presents. For dinner we have mashed potatoes, ham, and pumpkin pie. Everything is delicious. Our favorite game is hiding a glass pickle ornament and whoever finds it first gets to open their present first. It is a German tradition because my mom’s side of the family are German. The next game we play is cops and robbers. My cousin and I are a team and my sisters are a team. We do rock, paper, scissors shoot game and whoever wins gets to pick if they are going to be cops or robbers. We run around the house – so much fun! Then we all settle down, open presents and eat delicious pie. All too soon we have to say our goodbyes.
– Annabel M.

Christmas at My House
A gigantic tree, a lot of presents, two jolly elves and one very cute dog. My elves’ names are Ralph and Snowflake. My dog’s name is Mr. Puppy. My grandma always comes to our house on the day before Christmas. All of us enjoy a big dinner. We open presents while watching “A Christmas Story” and other movies like “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “The Polar Express.” Christmas is a fun time!
– Logan C.

Holiday Hall
Run, laugh, jump! My family has to rent a hall for Christmas because I have about 100 people in my family – lots of aunts, uncles and so many cousins! It really is a special time because we do not see each other that often because everybody always has events. Another reason we have to rent a hall is because we can’t fit in a house. We usually rent Rocky River Hall because Rocky River Hall is very big. We also usually eat dinner and dessert at the hall and sometimes a balloon person comes! Last year the balloon person made me a horse and a dog. Getting together with all of my many family members is a special holiday tradition for me!  
– Lucy R.

Have You Ever Celebrated Ramazan?
Have you ever not eaten or drank for a day? Well I have because I celebrate Ramazan. Do you celebrate Ramazan? Ramazan is a holy month for Muslims. All Muslims fast during this month. During fasting you do not eat or drink for a whole day! At the end of the month of Ramazan there is a three-day celebration. On those days we visit our relatives and the young visit their elders and might get treats or money! We also go to mosque in the morning of the first day of Ramazan holiday. The children and adults who are sick, on medicine, or people who travel cannot fast. The fasting starts at sunrise to sundown. At night you wake up and you head to your dinner table and you eat and drink. When you are done eating and drinking you say Bismillah and you wash your hands and mouth. When you finish washing your hands and mouth, you brush your teeth and go back to sleep. Do you want to celebrate Ramazan like me? We celebrate Ramazan to show our honor and sacrifice to Allah.
– Mehmet U.

Our Christmas Traditions
My family goes to the North Pole and to Santa’s castle. We bake a Jesus birthday cake and have a play at church. We cut down a tree and decorate it. We open gifts with our family. We have lots of fun.
– Bobby L.

Getting Up Early
My brothers and I wake up really early, at 5:00 a.m. On Christmas Day I wake up super early to wake my mommy and daddy. We open up our stockings while my parents make breakfast. Once we eat breakfast and clean up, we open presents. We make a big mess. Our floor is covered with wrapping paper. Once we are done opening presents, we quickly clean up the wrapping paper to play with our new toys. We watch Christmas movies on Christmas Day like “A Christmas Story” and other movies too. In the evening time we go to my grandma's house for Christmas dinner. I love Christmas because it is all about family.
– Ashlyn