“Students spread holiday excitement with lights and Santa’s on their decks.”
Even before Thanksgiving break, some students around campus were already busy decorating their apartments for Christmas.
“We wanted to have a whole month of Christmas in our apartment. So we had to decorate before Thanksgiving, so we could enjoy it for longer than just two weeks,” said Lauren G. Solis, junior liberal studies major.
Solis said she and her roommates started plans to decorate their apartement for the Christmas season as soon as they moved in back in September.
“I think (decorating) helps with my roommates, too, since they’re so far from home, then this becomes our family and this becomes our home. And we get to have fun with it.”
Early planners like Solis and her roommates, facilities and the Associated Students of California Baptist University were also talking about lighting the Christmas tree on the front lawn back in August, said Alex M. Wright, senior Christian studies major and president of ASCBU.
The tree on the CBU front lawn is also decorated and lit by facilities every year in preparation for the Christmas season and ASCBU’s Christmas Tree Lighting Party.
“Tradition says that the Music Department actually held their Christmas concert during the party. Alumni have also told me that there used to be a nativity scene and the entire event was for the whole community,” Wright said. “However, ASCBU is the only department on campus who plans this event in recent years so we can only keep it restricted to students, alumni, faculty and staff.”
Other students, like Crystal L. Colvin, junior psychology and sociology double-major, are not so excited to see Christmas decorations.
“Looking at Christmas decorations and Christmasy stuff makes me sick to my stomach,” Colvin said. “I just feel like there are so many Christmas things that are thrown into the mix that are not what (Christmas is) supposed to be about.”
However, the Christmas decorating is not just going on in the apartments of students. Some of CBU’s professors on campus also decorate their offices and doors.
Walk down the second floor hallway of the W.E. James Building and the hallway has been transformed.
The office doors in the Modern Languages and Literature Department have been decorated to look like Christmas presents.
The doors are decorated each year by Rosemary Welsh, secretary of the department of Modern Languages and Literature.
“(I decorated) to add some Christmas cheer in our hallways and bring Christmas to our faculty and students,” Welsh said.
