Written by Megan Li
The days are getting shorter while the papers are getting longer. The sky is black when you leave the dorm for your 8 a.m.—for all you know, you’re heading to Lane Hall at 3 a.m. by accident. Your hands are shoved into your pockets and jacket pulled over your face as foggy gray skies trail your rush between buildings throughout the day. After hours of studying in the library, you exit the doors to find the sky dark again, and it is only 6 p.m. Thankfully, the Hillsdale campus community supplies plenty of ways to find festive cheer in both the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons.
The Student Activities Board always brings holiday fun to the students through their events. Despite the many students raring to begin celebrating Christmas, the grateful spirit and autumnal cheer of November SAB events remind us of the Thanksgiving season. Pick up popcorn, cider, hot coffee, and apples at Fall Fest, write cards to thank your professors or give love to friends on Day of Thanks, or sit around a candlelit table in the Searle Center with your friends to dig into turkey and pie at the Thanksgiving Dinner.
At the 1844 Society’s Founding Fest last year, fires burned brightly throughout the night as students and professors drank hot chocolate, decorated Christmas ornaments, and pet llamas. Once December is here, students can team up to compete in Gingerbread Wars, a fun night of aggressive gingerbread decorating with all of the supplies provided!
Even the dining hall gets into the spirit. One day, you will descend the stairs to the dining hall to find that it has completely transformed into Santa’s workshop overnight. Dining hall workers dress in green and red, Christmas music blasts over the speakers, and twinkling lights and tinsel garlands decorate the entire space. The holiday cheer is strong as students wave at each other across tables and share Christmas-themed desserts.
But the seasonal excitement thrives in the dorm spaces as well. Despite the shorter days, the inside of the dorms burns brightly, filled with the smell of something delicious bubbling on the stove and the sound of laughter. The plummeting temperatures make Hillsdale students seek out the warmth of community, for the joy of having your best friends a door down the hall during the holidays is one unique to the college experience.
And what would the season be without music! The Music Department brings one of the most important aspects of the Christmas season. The atmosphere inside the Howard Music Hall is rich with instrumental melodies and voices raised in song. Men and women twirl in a blur of emerald green and bright red at the Swing Club’s annual Christmas swing as onlookers sway to the jazz background. As the night ends, students, unrecognizable in their armor of warm clothing, bustle home in groups under shining street lights reflecting off of snowy sidewalks.
Sitting like unwrapped presents under a tree, holiday festivities await us through the people waiting to celebrate with you. Yes, the season comes with dark skies and cold temperatures, but it also holds a kind of joy that cannot be found anywhere else. The season’s perpetual hope shows us what makes Christmas truly worth celebrating: the people that Christ has died to save.
Megan Li, ’27, is a sophomore studying economics and journalism. When she isn’t consuming an unhealthy amount of caffeine to finish her homework, you can find her curled up with a good book, taking photos outdoors, or playing her guitar.
Published in November 2024
