City College students and staff share their holiday traditions
Holiday Traditions at City College – from Thanksgiving to Christmas
December 21, 2017
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“If we have time, we celebrate with family.” Nov. 2017
Business administration and accounting major Rochelle O’Donnell-Juarez, 33, said, “I pretty much celebrate all breaks, Thanksgiving and Christmas, usually with my friends, family, depending. Because my husband is military, if we have time we’ll celebrate with family. If not, we’ll just celebrate with our friends here in San Diego.”
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“It’s a tradition to take the train up to San Juan.” Nov. 2017
Cosmetology major, Andy Mills, 36, celebrates the holidays. He said, “It’s a tradition, when we take the train up to San Juan to go visit my cousins for Thanksgiving. Christmas is usually quiet. We celebrate but we just stay in San Diego, just my mom, my dog, and my daughter will come out in some winters.“
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“All I do is hang out with my family.” Nov. 2017
Cosmetology major, Chelsea Dell, 21, celebrates during the holidays by traveling to her family’s house in her hometown. She said “I just hang out with my family.”
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Tawnya Williams plans on making tamales with Maria Simonton for Christmas, Nov. 2017.
Cosmetology major and teacher, Maria Simonton, and Tawnya Williams, Cosmetology major, 40 said, “We are returned mothers. Basically we’ve lived our life and now we are returning to education to pursue a career we enjoy and love as a cosmetologist. Both of us have two children and they’re mature and so we’re now engaging in activities that encourage us in life and further our retirement also.”
This is how they celebrated during the Thanksgiving break. Maria said ”first we clean, then we rearrange furniture, and then we put our Christmas tree up while we have our Thanksgiving dinner.”
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“It’s not really anything like when I was younger in North Carolina.” Nov. 2017
Psychology major, Cindy Sanchez, 19, said “I just decorate my house with my mom. We just basically put up Christmas lights in the house and they’re like actual Christmas. Christmas eve we go to my dad’s family in Chula Vista, and go visit them and come back home. It’s not really anything like I used to do when I was younger in North Carolina.” This is how they spent their break. Sanchez said ”we basically made the turkey and gossiped, caught up with our family members we haven’t seen in a few months probably.”
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“I didn’t go very far. I just went to Hollywood Hills.” Nov. 2017
Janette Dye-Williams, member services volunteer at Jazz 88.3, said “I didn’t go very far, I just went to Hollywood Hills. Had family that came down from Seattle,and had Thanksgiving in Hollywood Hills. They smoked the turkey for many, many hours, which was good.”
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“I’m going to Miami to see my sister on Christmas.” Nov. 2017
Maintenance Custodian Dwight Lester, 59, said “I’m going to Miami to see my sister on Christmas. I spent the holidays in Georgia with my other sister, in Atlanta.”
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“For this Thanksgiving, we’re going up to my parent’s cabin up in Julian. They have a house up there so we get to go up and enjoy the fall weather and the leaves,” Nov. 2017
Broadcast Engineer Craig Chatfield, 57, said for “Christmas, I have all my kids and grand-kids come to our house and we celebrate with the whole family. We have the big dinner and we play some games and just enjoy each other’s company.”