CPE1: Central Park East 1 Elementary School

Festival of lights - by Erin (K/1 Teacher)

As many of you know, I am a fanatic about Christmas. To me, this is truly the most wonderful time of the year. I am lucky to be working with Digna, who enjoys singing holiday songs as much as I do, otherwise, I’d be in trouble!

When I was a little girl, my mom and I would always travel to California to spend Christmas at my grandmother’s house with my four uncles and cousins. My grandmother had a plastic tree so my uncle would play “O Christmas Tree” on the piano, while we would sing “O plastic tree, O plastic tree, your leaves are made of PVC.” 

There would be so many people at my grandmother’s house that inevitably someone would have to sleep on the floor. One year my uncle had to sleep under the plastic tree and claimed that Santa Claus didn’t see him in the dark and stepped right on his head! He showed me and my younger cousins the red mark which he said was made by Santa’s boot. 

As I grew older, my mom and I stopped going to California for Christmas. Traditions were (and still are) very important to me. We would watch It’s a Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve, always crying at the same scenes. We used to bake sugar cookies (which turned to rocks within days and became a family joke) and decorate them with different colored frosting. 

Decorating the Christmas tree was also an important tradition. We have a huge collection of ornaments, each with its own history. There are the ones that are clearly from the ‘70’s (you can tell by the color of them) that my mother made herself when she first moved to New York. There are the fancy balls that a family friend of my great grandfather made. There are the paper snowmen that I made when I was 3. And there are ornaments we have collected on our travels.

I think this is what this season is about most of all: a coming together of friends and family around tradition, songs, food, stories, history. And this is exactly what the Festival of Lights is about at CPE. We begin the evening with a potluck dinner; a sharing of food, food that might be part of your own tradition or culture or history. And then we move on to singing and story telling. 

My traditions are very important to me, and each family has their own tradition. Whatever you may or may not celebrate—Hanukah, Diwali, Christmas, Three King’s Day, Eid al-Adha, Kwanzaa, Chinese New Year—this is a time of coming together and sharing stories, songs and histories. 

So please, make a dish, or share a story of your family’s tradition, and join us at the Festival of Lights. I will be there singing off key and too shy to tell a story, as usual! Hope to see you too!