Christmas is one of the most exciting holidays. Gathering with your family to enjoy the birth of baby Jesus ideal to cherish this time of year. Joliet West students and staff celebrate their Christmas in a unique way. Their religious beliefs and values makes their holiday different to them. These are a few of the ways students at West celebrate. “During the Christmas holiday everyone gets together and celebrates with a feast and give out presents. Muslims don’t celebrate Christmas. They don’t believe in Santa or that it is Jesus birthday.  During that time Muslim families get together and have a big dinner. Usually we bring presents to other family because we do a lot of giving gifts. Muslims don’t drink alcohol during that time. We drink eggnog though but no without alcohol,”  Junior, Noor Chammout.

“Although I may be Indian, my family and I still put up a celebration during the holiday season. Some of the things we do are very similar to a normal Christmas such as opening gifts, Christmas tree, etc.. The main difference is our food dishes. of course my mother bakes pies, cookies, and cakes, but in addition to that she makes special Indian deserts such as gulab jamun (a delicious sweet with a cake like texture drenched in a warm syrup) and different flavors of kulfi (ice cream like desert served with fresh fruits)” Senior, Aishu Anil.

“As a Christian we celebrate Christmas with many traditions. As a Christian child in our home we pray before and after our meal. We then play a family game and have many laughs.  When it’s time to distribute gifts, we all say why we gave a person that one special gift. We have family friends over who are either Muslim or Atheist and they are respectful to our traditions and even participate in our games,” Senior, Tianna Mickles.

“I go to church with my family and we get blessed for having our family there to keep a smile on our face. That will always be blessed to have us in their life. We then have a gathering at a family’s home to bless the food and love within our family and be blessed that god is always in our lives,” Senior, Chad Musser.

Christmas is different for everyone. If it involves being a different religion or having different values, that is respectable. Although, everyone has something in common: they come together with their families to cherish their moments together in the holiday season.