Ash Siddiqui, 12

Senior Ash Siddiqui celebrates Eid al-Fitr with her family and other members of the community, and is one of the major celebrations for Islam.

“It helps us be closer to more people of our religion, cause we also go to prayers in the morning for it, and we get to talk to and, like, meet a lot of new people from our same culture,” Siddiqui said. “And we can share different experiences of Eid as we bring them together. And it’s really nice to bond with people here, because it’s kind of hard to find people of our same culture, especially in America.”

While she doesn’t celebrate the holiday, Siddiqui does enjoy the aesthetic and the gift giving associated with Christmas, like Secret Santa. 

“My love language is gift giving,” Siddiqui said. “And so I love seeing something that I know that my friends like. I’m like, ‘hey, I don’t want this this to seem weird, that I’m giving you a gift, like, randomly.’”

Overall, Siddiqui loves sharing traditions with her friends, both from her friends and to her friends.

“Honestly, just ask and I can invite you to celebrate with us, because I have friends that kind of want to celebrate the things I celebrate with me,” Siddiqui said. “I like introducing people to more stuff that’s islamic because I have so many Christian friends, and they’ve worn my cultural clothing and they’ve come to the mosque with me. And so they’ve watched our prayers and seen how it is. And it’s like, I like that people like to be involved with it.”

Maddie Moffitt, 10

Sophomore Maddie Moffitt celebrates Christmas with her family. She is half Catholic and half Jewish, and she celebrates Thanksgiving with one side of her family and Christmas with the other. They have family dinner on Christmas Eve. 

“We don’t have a lot of free time to hang out with one another,” Moffitt said. “So during the holiday season, we just set apart a lot of time to just catch up. I just like to spend a lot of time with my family over the holiday season and prioritize that over anything else.”

Jack Coffey, 11

While junior Jack Coffey said he doesn’t personally believe in any religion, he does celebrate both Christmas and Hanukkah each year. One side of his family is Christian and the other Jewish.

“I think a lot of people think that they’re more similar than the other just because, like a lot of TV shows or cartoons try and, like, put them both together to, I guess, cover all the bases,” Coffey said. “I wouldn’t say that they are similar. It’s a little bit of interesting history about how it is, that it sort of evolved to compete with Christmas the same way that Christmas evolved to compete with pagan holidays like Yule.”

His favorite traditions include the tree from Christmas and the food, including latkes and challah bread, from Hanukkah. This year, Hanukkah is from Dec. 25 to Jan. 2. However it moves dates, with it being Dec. 7 through Dec. 15 last year.  

“Don’t always assume that it’s on Christmas,” Coffey said. “A lot of people on Instagram, they’ll be like, ‘hey, Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah, but Hanukkah already passed two weeks ago.”