Teacher Holiday Traditions

By Ava Niedermyer, Emily Perez, Megan Mancuso

Dr. Parenteau: “The goodie table. My grandparents had the most elaborate goodie table. Now that they’re not with us, we’ve just held onto that. In the middle there’s a fruit bowl- but nobody touches the fruit- because all around it are peppermints, chocolates, gumdrops, and spearmint leaves. Any goodie was on that table, and it’s there for the picking all day and all night. It’s not like you have to wait for dinner to have dessert- you get dessert all day. I have a much more scaled down version, but we have to have a goodie table every Christmas. We keep a picture of my grandparents on the table so the kids understand that this is what they would’ve wanted forthem.” ​ Mrs. LoRusso: “We celebrate Christmas Eve with my husband’s family and Christmas Day with my family. We always do a big brunch on Christmas Day first before we open up presents. On Christmas Eve with my husband’s family we always play the Saran Wrap Ball Game where there are different presents and you have to keep passing it around to everybody else until they roll doubles with the dice and it’s a lot of fun!” ​ Sra. Cruz: “Christmas Eve we wear ugly sweaters, dance to Spanish music, play Feliz Navidad about one hundred times, eat pasteles and pernil, and play a ball game where you have to unwrap a ball of Saran Wrap to get a prize. It used to be at midnight but now that we have little kids again we can’t do that anymore. We open presents together and then everyone goes back home. Another Christmas tradition is that we drink Coquito. Christmas morning, my kids wake us up once Santa has arrived. We open Santa’s gifts, and then we open gifts to each other. We eat leftovers, and we still use the elves too!” ​ Mr. Sakowich: “Christmas Eve is the only holiday that my entire family gets together every year, so it’s special. All the cousins and aunts and uncles come together in one space.” ​ Mr. Moreno: “Because we live here and most of our family is in Michigan, we celebrate Christmas early here. I always make cookies with my kids and they help decorate them. They open presents the weekend before Christmas. Then we go to Michigan to celebrate with our family. A holiday tradition with my family is that we always make tamales.” ​ Sra. Pagnotta: “I’m Jewish and my husband is Catholic, so in my house we celebrate it all! We are celebrating nonstop in December. We light the menorah each night and my kids get a present each night. On Christmas Eve we celebrate a big Italian Seven Fishes dinner, and the next day we have a smaller party at a family member’s house. For New Year’s, I make my family do all the things that we talk about in Spanish class! I make them eat twelve grapes, run around the block with suitcases, and more.” ​ Mr. Nocella: “On Christmas Eve, me and my family and my wife’s family deliver meals to families in need and deliver gifts for an adopt a family charity that we run.” Ms. Robertson: “I go into the city with family and friends for different things like Broadway shows, Christmas shows, going out for dinner. I always make sure to see my family and friends on the weekends leading up to the holidays.” ​ Mrs. Zenzerovic: “On Christmas Eve we all go to my aunt’s house in Queens and every single year we have all the kids go into the basement of her home. We have someone outside the windows of the balcony jingling bells and we hear hoof prints. All of a sudden Santa Claus comes from upstairs down into the basement and everyone is screaming and happy. We do this every year because we’re happy and the kids are happy, and they never get tired of it.” ​ Mr. Smith (gym): “On Christmas Eve I go to 4:15 mass with my family, and then we come back to my house. We have lots of food, and a couple of drinks. Christmas morning, now that my brother has two little daughters, we do our Christmas gifts in the morning and then we head out to my brother’s house. This year I’m really looking forward to it because one niece is 4 years old and she’s really excited for Christmas. For New Year’s, I like to lay low and take it easy.” ​ Mr Cassara: “We definitely love to eat. Christmas Eve I make seafood and Chinese style fish. We always go to my brother-in-law’s house for Christmas, wreck his house, and leave- which is amazing because we don’t have to clean up! Good time off, great time to reflect, lots of food, and good people.” ​ Mr. Bewick: “We always go and see the Christmas tree with the kids at Radio City, and we stop at the Macy’s windows. On Christmas Eve my wife makes very good stromboli from scratch.” ​ Mrs. Poveromo: “One of my holiday traditions is that we go to see the Rockettes every year right after thanksgiving. Another one is the light show at Jones Beach. Before my husband and I were married, we would go after the holidays to the mall and go shopping and have a certain amount of money that we could spend. We would go out to lunch and then go home and give each other the gifts because it was half the price.” ​ Mr. Luzzi: “A big family tradition for the Luzzi’s is on Christmas Eve at my house we don’t have any meat. The adults do a secret Santa gift exchange. On New Year’s Eve we do the Luzzi family food tour followed by New Year’s Day, we do a very fancy dinner where the boys get all dressed up.”