TRADITIONS

In midst of the holiday chaos, one of my favorite things involving Christmas is hearing the traditions that each family holds individually for the holiday. Hearing everyone's personal stories, (as to if their little brother wakes them up at 5:30 screaming at the top of their lungs for the whole house to wake up, or the traditional "you can't open your presents until we go to church", or if they're the type of family where everyone sleeps in past 12:00 for a lazy Christmas morning), is somehow something I can always rely on to calm me down, despite the craziness of the holiday season of stressing over presents and family drama. Sometimes, people seem to get too caught up in the presents and the craziness of the holiday to sit down and relax and remember the real reason of Christmas. Hearing everyone’s Christmas traditions is so exclusive, making it extremely interesting to listen to. Every family is so unique in their own ways, and have traditions that get passed down from every previous year and from when they themselves were the children. It’s pretty cool how traditions work. The traditions I do now as a 17 year old, will someday get passed down to my future children, where they will pass it down as well. Whenever I hear of traditions, I actually think of our school which may sound quite random. The standards we set now will forever be passed down from one class to the next class and so on. Right now, it may not seem like a big deal for us at all, most kids would rather complain and whine about our school then take the high road and see how unique of an opportunity this is for us, the first graduating class. I mean, when we are graduated from college and have started our lives ten years from now, revisiting the halls of Newark Charter to see what traditions are still living inside of this building will be incredible if you really think about it. Who else do you know gets to say the traditions they set their 4 years of high school sets the standards for students attending in the future generations?!