Tarleton students reflect on holiday traditions from home

BY KELLAN BYARS

Multimedia Journalist

There’s a quiet kind of magic that settles over Tarleton when the semester winds down. The kind that hums beneath the glow of campus lights and the last exam before winter break.

For a university built on tradition, every corner of campus echoes with stories from the past, and every ritual, big or small, reminds students that they are part of something larger than themselves.

Yet for many, the holidays spark a longing for the traditions back home – the smells, the sounds and the moments that make each holiday season special.

It’s in this overlap, between campus rituals and the familiar practices waiting in their hometowns, that students find both comfort and connection, carrying pieces of home with them even as they embrace Tarleton’s own legacy of tradition.

For Madalyn Little, a freshman at Tarleton, that tradition comes every year on Black Friday, when she and her family pick out and decorate a Christmas tree.

“Every year, me and my family go to Devine Acres and buy a real tree. Then when we bring it home, and me and my two brothers decorate it. We’ve done it for about ten years now,” Little said.

The tradition began when she and her brothers took a field trip to the tree farm in elementary school. Her parents loved the idea of bringing home a real tree, and so a family ritual was born.

“I remember the first time we did it. It was so fun and such a good way for our family to spend time together,” Little said. “We were little, but dad let us try to cut it down with the saw. He ended up taking over, though. It was so cool driving home to see it on the back of the truck. We were in charge of making sure it didn’t fly off in the hour it took us to get back home.”

Little says that what makes the tradition so meaningful is the rare opportunity for the entire family of five to be together. Last year was especially memorable when her dad finally let her brothers cut down the tree themselves, an effort filled with laughter and struggle.

“When we do this tradition each year, I feel immense gratitude to be spending time with my family. It brings me so much joy. It truly has taught me that the holidays are all about family and being with one another,” Little said.

While Little’s family enjoys picking out and decorating their own Christmas tree, freshman Lylah Durrett enjoys baking cookies with her loved ones.

“My favorite holiday tradition is Christmas cookie baking, which consists of my grandparents, parents, aunt and uncle and all the grandkids. We come together before Christmas for our annual cookie baking. We each choose a different cookie style to make and use the entire day to prepare and bake everything,” Durrett said.

By mid-production, the kitchen is a cheerful mess: flour-dusted noses, giggles over lopsided cookies and the occasional playful flour fight erupting across the counters. Rolling pins clatter, timers beep and someone is always sneaking a bite of dough.

What started as a small gathering with her mom and uncle in 2002, producing just a few dozen cookies, has grown into a full holiday production, with the family now baking 50-100 dozen each year. But it’s never about simply baking tons of cookies; it’s about connection.

“The best memories I have are mixing the dough, and whenever it gets too tough, we have to call in the boys for reinforcements to come help us finish mixing,” Durrett said.

Durrett felt that the tradition may revolve around baking, but its real value lies in the togetherness it brings. Spending the day in the kitchen with family has become a yearly reminder of what matters most.

“When doing this tradition, I feel very connected with my family and happy that we have something that brings us together. This tradition has taught me how much family means during the holidays and why we should never forget about the ones that love us,” Durrett said.

Flour-covered hands, children’s laughter and the smell of freshly baked cookies filling the house are the moments Durrett carries with her, a warm reminder of what the season is about: love, laughter and the little traditions that make home feel like home.

As the holiday season unfolds, whether it’s finding the perfect tree or laughing over flour-covered cookie dough, these family traditions become more than just rituals, they become anchors. They are reminders of where students come from, the people who shaped them and the joy found in shared moments.

At Tarleton, tradition is woven into the very fabric of campus life. Through longstanding tradition, the university itself is a living celebration of the past, present and future. For students like Little and Durrett, the traditions they carry from home do more than preserve memories; they echo the values that Tarleton celebrates of connection, community and the enduring power of small, meaningful rituals.

In the end, it’s these moments: the giggles while baking, the pride in a freshly cut tree, the quiet gratitude for being together, that remind students of what truly matters. Traditions, whether on campus or back home, are more than just holiday activities. They are love in action, the glue that holds families together and the heartbeat that keeps Tarleton students connected to both their roots and their community, no matter where they are.