Can you recall a favorite holiday memory?
I’m thinking about being in Hawaii and decorating a little tree with popcorn, and I wanted to eat the popcorn, and I wondered, “The popcorn will go bad, won’t it? We’d better eat it, it’s gonna start smelling weird or something!” It seemed really strange putting popcorn on a tree.
Emily Krueger, 26, Music Artist @Velvettica
I remember a Christmas when my brothers and I all got paintball guns, and that was really exciting, because we were all really into that.
Ross Strome, 33, Artist Manager
I was petrified of Santa, people dressed as Santa, all of my childhood. I didn’t like the Easter bunny either.
Judith Manning, 51½, Freelancer
One Christmas my dad brought home three ornaments, pure black, with etched faces on one side, and the other side they have quotes from Camus and Sartre, like “Hell is other people,” like existential Christmas. Now we have those hung every year. We also have an ornament of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We have a weird Christmas tree.
Dina Lusztig-Noyes, 17, Santa Cruz Youth Poet Laureate
I had wanted a dog for a long time, and when I was 7, I got a little puppy for Christmas, a Lakeland terrier.
Kai Thomas-Nasef, 17, Jazz Drummer
Advent calendars have always been my favorite thing, with small gifts every day leading up to Christmas. We have our own invention, and it’s like a TV show. We open a bag and inside is a piece of paper with a riddle about where that day’s present is, and we have to find it. It’s really fun.
Avel Gonzalez, 13, Student
YOOO ITS AVEL