The holidays aren’t all fun and cheer. Sometimes, they can be downright terrifying. Nothing is worse than making a gingerbread house, hands shaking as you put the roof on the already unstable cookie structure, your grandma watching you closely. You can feel the house feebly trying to stay together, but it’s losing the battle. In your panicked state, you forget everything you know about engineering and physics and glop frosting on the sides as if it’ll make it stay together. For a season that’s the “most wonderful time of the year” it can be straight-up stressful.

Yet the holidays remain a time of celebration, joy, and a time to reminisce on past memories and stories fondly. When asked about their holiday stories, many students responded fondly, recalling times of delight and contentment. Others remember embarrassment.

“I think it was Thanksgiving. The little kids, including me, were eating and wanted to impress my older cousin, so I told her I could swallow a whole mushroom, but it got stuck in my throat and I couldn’t breathe,” said junior Karina Lopez-Medina. “My mom wasn’t paying attention to me until she saw I was blue or purple and took me to the sink. When my stomach hit the sink, the mushroom shot out of my mouth, hit a window, and fell into the sink…I don’t think we’ve eaten another mushroom since.”

Erika Mosley, sophomore, said, “We had a new baby in our house. His name was Troy. We let the kids take care of Troy because he was annoying us. His half-sister was holding him and walking around—you know how you hold a sack of flour, with a death grip around it? She was doing that to the child. I guess she figured out that it wasn’t comfortable because he was screaming, so she decided, ‘Oh, I should loosen my hold.’ She was standing over the living room, which is a step-down, and she drops him. On his face. He’s two. So, of course, he started screaming and crying and…Merry Christmas.”

While most people have stories that can be laughed off in good spirit, some have legitimate stories of trauma.

“I came home from a trip and my house was burned down,” said sophomore David Smith.

“My sister was in the hospital Christmas week,” said junior Alexis Potts.

This season is a time of rejoicing for many Americans and students at Beaverton. Even the hallways seem brighter as we approach the holidays. Though it is important to remember everybody is not as lucky, due to family, financial, or mental, or physical situations. We all want to rip our shirts off and screech gleefully about the holidays but before we do that, take a moment to send a thought to people who struggle during the season of joy and cheer.