I love the holidays. The music, food, drinks. Everything about it is just so beautiful. You get to spend time with family and friends. It brings people together. I have a big family so it’s always a fun time. We have our ongoing traditions and in my family, our heritage has a lot to do with that.  

I grew up in a Colombian household. A lot of my traditions came from my culture, for example in Colombia they do not have Thanksgiving, so in Barranquilla, we have a night of friends and family early in the morning December 6. At 3-4 in the morning everyone in the town would come outside with candles and food and just enjoy their town, it’s a very beautiful event. When my family moved to the United States they couldn’t do that anymore. So instead of that they would start Christmas a bit early.

 For as long as I can remember, my family and I would celebrate Thanksgiving around the night, so we would take the whole day to decorate the house with Christmas decorations. We would play the same ten Christmas songs over and over again while decorating the tree. 

Through all the decorations we would find this silver and white Christmas hat that my brother and I would argue over, my brother would always win and would go and make some hot chocolate for the family. My mother would dance and sing as she decorated my brother and would make sure the tree looks amazing. 

This happens every year. Throughout everything my mother always takes a picture of my brother and I decorating the tree. She took the picture this year and then said “We do this every year and every year I have a new picture of the same thing.” That was the most memorable thing she could’ve said because that was the moment I realized we had a tradition, a very happy tradition.

That’s only the beginning of the day later on after all of the decorating is over, we clean. Even though that doesn’t seem so exciting, It is the best part of the day. Why? Well after all the Christmas themed things are done my family puts on hardcore Spanish music, the kind of music you dance to. My family would clean, cook and dance, before the rest of the family would get there. On the plus side the house always looks amazing after. 

When all the work is done my family and I would begin to get ready for my mom and would either match or completely contradict each other. This year I wore a fluffy white dress with my hair down and my mom wore a black one with her hair up. My step dad and brother never try too hard so they dress casually, we then go on with the rest of the night enjoying the company of our family and friends. Now, there might be many other holidays and traditions, but my favorite time of year will always be around the winter because it brings my family together and it brings me a lot of joy, fun and most of all food.