St. Patrick's Day By: Caroline Kepler

Saint Patrick’s Day is probably one of the most underrated holidays of the calendar year and frankly, I don’t see why. Most people I know don’t celebrate the holiday and just see it as the holiday between Valentines Day and Easter. Few people have learned about the history of the holiday and I believe that if they known more about the significance of this day then maybe they would celebrate it. For starters, St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated annually on March 17th to coincide with the death of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. St. Patrick is one of the most widely known Christian figures, yet much of his life remains a mystery. There are accounts of him performing impossible acts like, banishing all of the snakes from Ireland, that were proven to be false.  In Ireland this day was first celebrated with a religious feast day, throughout the years this celebration has evolved and now includes parades, dances, special foods, and a lot of green. In addition, there are many myths about St. Patrick’s Day that people are lead to believe. One of the biggest myths is that St. Patrick was Irish. Contrary to popular belief, St. Patrick was not Irish, instead he was born in Britain, but was also not considered British since the British Isles were occupied by the Romans at the time. Also, historically green was not associated with St Patrick’s Day, this quality was probably added in the 18th century, since the supporters of Irish independence used green to represent their cause. Similarly, Corned beef was not a traditional St. Patrick’s Day meal, instead pork was traditionally eaten. The transition to corned beef came in the 19th century when Irish immigrants in New York substituted pork with corned beef in order to save money.   

Personally, I love St. Patrick’s because it brings back great childhood memories of celebrating in daycare and with my family. When I was younger up until I was 10 or 11 my daycare would always celebrate St. Patrick’s day with green everything and rainbows with pots of gold at the end of them. Those are some of my favorite memories, since my teachers would bring in green bagels, juice, and cupcakes and also have us hunt for a leprechaun that they made. My teachers went to great lengths to make St. Patrick's Day fun for us and because of that I love the holiday. For as long as I can remember my family also celebrated St. Patrick’s Day with a family dinner of corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes on the Sunday closest to St. Patrick’s Day. My mom and I would spend the day cooking the corned beef and baking Irish soda bread together. My family and I would eat together, swapping stories and after dinner we would always have a green themed dessert that my cousin made. We still celebrate to this day and because of those memories corned beef, cabbage and potatoes is my favorite meal.  

In Honor of Valentine's Day by Madison Levinson

I feel like having a blog post due on Valentine's Day is a blessing in disguise. Yes, I am sitting in my room alone writing a blog post on one of the most adorable holidays of the year. However, I have an obvious and interesting topic to write about. I could write this blog post about the history of Valentine's day and the portrayal of Valentine's day in literature. But I am not going to do that. Instead, I will be writing something a bit more creative, a love letter. No, I will not be spilling any juicy and dark secrets, so if that's what you came for you can stop reading now.

A heart of roses because what else
screams Valentine's day more?

I know for anybody reading this that I talk to on a regular basis, I can come off as cold and heartless. I often don't think about what I have to say and I also generally value logic over emotions. So yeah, I come off as bitter and cold. But every so often, specifically on this wonderful day of love (AKA my favorite holiday of the year), I become not so cold and people realize I actually have a soul. So in this blog post I will be writing a letter from my somewhat thawed heart.

Dear the things I love,

As I just stated, I know I can be heartless and mean. But, when I'm not being sarcastic and obnoxious, I am so thankful for every single one of you. I love my parents for constantly believing in me and being proud of me, no matter how big or small the accomplishment is. I love my friends for being so brutally honest and bringing me back to reality when I need it the most. I love my teachers for giving me the education so many others could only dream of.

I don't always realize how truly lucky I am. I know I constantly complain and get nerved out about the smallest most insignificant things. I know there are people who have it worse than me and would kill if their biggest problem in life was getting a 90 on a test. I am so truly thankful for the life I have been given. I am a girl who grew up in a wealthy house who got practically everything that she has ever asked for. But besides the materialistic aspect of my life, I was given a holy grail. A wonderful education in a suburban New Jersey town that will prepare me for my life. I also have a wonderful support system of family, friends, and acquaintances willing to risk it all to be there for me.

I could continue and talk about all of the other things and people in my life that have sculpted it into the masterpiece that it is...but no matter how many words or analogies I use, there is no other way to sum up how much I love everything I have better than the words
"Thank you".

Thank you,
Madison Levinson

The Week Before Break by Sarah West

The air is cold, the festive lights shine bright,

people smile and laugh all through the night,

yet as the children frolic in the fresh snow,

we are stuck inside, in our homes.

Although we'd love to join in the fun,

there is just too much work that needs to be done.

Instead of holiday cookies, we make study guides,

And instead of carols we memorize formulas and outlines.

We work on projects instead of watching classic movies,

instead of spending time with family we must fulfill our duties.

As students, we always put school work first,

even when the constant stress over grades is the worst.

So still we continue to study late as all of the teachers cram

as many tests into the week before break as they can.

We don't even get to slow down during the best time of the year,

when we should be enjoying all of the holiday cheer.

Santa Claus: The Man, The Myth, The Legend

Santa Claus: The Man, The Myth, The Legend

By: Jillian Parks

December 2, 2008. As my heart pounded, my eyes gaped up at the man whose beard was made of snow and suit was as red as ripe cranberries. What was I to ask for? I knew at this very moment that I only had seconds left to spare to tell him the present I wanted most. Finally, I blurted out “A bike!” The events to come were much of a blur. My brother and I smiled for a picture, and gave the man the rest of our lists. But I knew that the thing that I whispered to the jolly man was the thing I was for sure going to get.

That Christmas, I knew I had made the right decision. The bike I got was beautiful (well it seemed so at the time). Cotton candy colored streamers fell out of the handle bars. An assortment of purple flowers, each unique in their own patterns dotted the winter white background. That day, I felt like the luckiest girl in the world, and it was all because of Santa.

 Believe it or not, though, the man people know today as Santa Claus, the one said to come down chimneys on Christmas and bring gifts and joy to children, did not always have these characteristics of the jolly man we all know and love today.

The Legend of Santa Claus

The legend of Santa Claus can be traced back hundreds of years to a monk named St. Nicholas. It is believed that Nicholas was born sometime around 280 A.D. in Patara, near Myra in modern-day Turkey. Much admired for his piety and kindness, St. Nicholas became the subject of many legends. It is said that he gave away all of his inherited wealth and traveled the countryside helping the poor and sick. Over the course of many years, Nicholas’s popularity spread and he became known as the protector of children and sailors. By the Renaissance, St. Nicholas was the most popular saint in Europe.

Sinter Klaas Comes to New York
St. Nicholas made his first inroads into American popular culture towards the end of the 18th century. In December 1773, and again in 1774, a New York newspaper reported that groups of Dutch families had gathered to honor the anniversary of his death.

The name Santa Claus evolved from Nick’s Dutch nickname, Sinter Klaas, a shortened form of Sint Nikolaas (Dutch for Saint Nicholas). In 1804, John Pintard, a member of the New York Historical Society, distributed woodcuts of St. Nicholas at the society’s annual meeting. The background of the engraving contains now-familiar Santa images including stockings filled with toys and fruit hung over a fireplace. In 1809,Washington Irving helped to popularize the Sinter Klaas stories when he referred to St. Nicholas as the patron saint of New York in his book, The History of New York. As his prominence grew, Sinter Klaas was described as everything from a “rascal” with a blue three-cornered hat, red waistcoat, and yellow stockings to a man wearing a broad-brimmed hat and a “huge pair of Flemish trunk hose.”

Shopping Mall Santa's

Gift-giving, mainly centered around children, has been an important part of the Christmas celebration since the holiday’s rejuvenation in the early 19th century. Stores began to advertise Christmas shopping in 1820, and by the 1840s, newspapers were creating separate sections for holiday advertisements, which often featured images of the newly-popular Santa Claus.It was only a matter of time before stores began to attract children, and their parents, with the lure of a peek at a “live” Santa Claus. In the early 1890s, the Salvation Army needed money to pay for the free Christmas meals they provided to needy families. They began dressing up unemployed men in Santa Claus suits and sending them into the streets of New York to solicit donations. Those familiar Salvation Army Santas have been ringing bells on the street corners of American cities ever since.

Living as Less Than by Madison Levinson

In class we read "The Minority Report" by Philip K. Dick. Although my blog post does not have to do with predicting the future of crime, it does pertain to the title of the work. Specifically, the word "minority". When people mention the word "minority", minds tend to travel to the obvious: skin color, race, and gender. The minority that people tend to ignore is religion. For the purpose of this post I will be focusing mainly on the Jewish religion, as it is my personal experience. Now, I was never deprived. I am a Caucasian, affluent, single child, who got anything I set my little heart on. But what I never truly got was a the sense of inclusiveness. This feeling was especially heightened during the winter months that approach the holiday season.

For most people the morning after Halloween is the official start to the holiday season. And for most people the holiday season means family, snow, and Christmas trees. Yes, Christmas trees, Who would ever think that Christmas trees could be the source of a problem?

As a small Jewish girl living in Sparta, New Jersey (The capital of farming but not Judaism) I was left out. All my friends would have days dedicated to simply decorating their houses: putting up lights, hanging up stockings and decorating the Christmas tree. All my family did was pull a Winnie the Pooh Menorah out of a box under our china cabinet. All of my friends had off on "winter break" for their holiday (but let's be honest, it may as well just be called "Christmas break"). I had to go into school practically all seven days of my holiday, and I guarantee nobody asked me what I got after saying my prayers on the fourth night of Hanukkah. All of my friends gushed about all of the toys that they got for Christmas when winter/Christmas break was over. By that time I had probably either broken or lost half of the toys my parents got me. As a small Jewish Girl I sunk to the back of the classroom during the holiday season. I quietly participated in all of the Christmas themed crafts, I just nodded and made something up when somebody asked me what I got for Christmas (even though it secretly infuriated me), I smiled and told the clerk "you too" at the store when she told me and my mother "Merry Christmas", and I envied all of the stories the children had of waking up on Christmas morning and running downstairs in their footie pajamas. That was the first time that I felt like I was less than everybody else around me.

As I grew up I came to terms with the fact that it was easier to please the majority and just do a Christmas craft. I realized that the school just didn't have the ability to give kids off for Hanukkah and Christmas. And I accepted the fact that I would always hear about decorating Christmas cookies as a family and getting into a frosting fight with Uncle Jimmy. But as I started to grow up I didn't just learn more about how society worked, I also learned more about my faith. I learned that Hanukkah was not a super important holiday, but Yom Kippur was. Yom Kippur is the Jewish Holiday for atonement, it is referred to as a holiday of the "high holy days". But I also learned that I was not given off from school on Yom Kippur. The most important important holiday of my religion was just another casual day at school where I had a science test. I had to take off from school for Yom Kippur, go to temple, and fast because that was what my religion mandated I do. That was the second time that I felt like I was less than everybody else around me.

A breakdown of religion in the United States
 (numbers may vary between different studies).

As I became a young adult I just accepted that the world was not going to give me special privileges because of my religion. The world wasn't going to favor me because I was different but the world also wasn't out to get me. What I did not accept and cannot accept is the way that people treated me because I was different. As an adult I came to terms with the person I was and the religion I worshiped because of it. I was not afraid to tell people I was Jewish when they asked what I got for Christmas. I was content with my beliefs. I felt as though I could handle however people reacted. I was wrong. I could not handle when somebody told me "You don't look Jewish". Sorry, should I carry around a giant sign with the word "Jew" and an arrow pointing at my face? Should I have my friends wear shirts that say "I'm with Jew" and an arrow pointing to me? Was I supposed to have a specific look because of my religion? I could not handle when somebody asked me if "That's why I had a big nose?". Yes, not only are all Jews supposed to look alike but were all also supposed to have the same exact honker on our face. Thank you for pointing it out because I am not at all self conscious about it. I could not handle when children started throwing pennies at me to see if I would bend over and pick them up. I am sorry to disappoint you but a penny is not going to buy me anything in this day and age. Maybe next time try a quarter so at least I can buy myself a decent gumball. I could not handle the first time somebody said "you're Jewish" as a reason for me not to have an opinion on a matter. Oh yeah, oops, I forgot. Us Jews just aren't allowed to have an opinion anymore. I could not handle learning about the Holocaust in school and feeling all of those piercing Christian eyes turn and look at me. Yeah, 6 million of us died, but I am not going to just burst into tears so you can feel bad for me. That was the third time that I felt like I was less than everybody else.

Now I can ignore the Christmas season. I can ignore the fact that my religion forces me to work around school and the world that I live in. I can also ignore the obscene remarks I receive. After all, 83% of the American population identifies as Christian, 13% identify as no religion, and the remaining 4% identify as a religion as non-Christian (The Jewish population makes up about 2.7% off the non-Christian population). I will always be a minority and I have come to accept that. I will also always feel like I am less than everybody else and I have come to accept that.