Several residences on campus dug into their storage closets last week to bring out the Christmas decorations and spruce up their home-away-from-home for the holidays.
An unfortunate surprise awaited the women of the Dow House when they found that their Christmas decorations had been ruined by a sewage leak.
Senior House Director Esther Ashmore said that they used some of their leftover funds to buy simple decorations such as lights and garland, but made a lot of decorations too, like the numerous paper snowflakes hung around the house.
Last Friday, the Dow House held a decorating party and had several people come help make decorations and decorate cookies.
“Caroline [Forsythe] and Jack [Hummel] were the masterminds,” Ashmore said. “They are so good at making something out of nothing.”
The women of Waterman Residence also had a decorating party — a yearly tradition in the house.
“Our Waterman Men came, and they brought music and manpower,” junior Haley Buccola said. “And we turned Waterman into a winter wonderland.”
Buccola said that as they pulled out past decorations they had to make some improvisations. When they were hanging up the garland, a lack of tools got in their way.
“There was no hammer because we’re a house of girls,” Buccola said.
Buccola said one of the girls just pulled out her cowboy boot and used that as a makeshift hammer.
They also had a welcome surprise when they started assembling the Christmas tree and had extra branches left over.
“We had two trees,” she said. “So now we have one in the entryway and one in the living room!”
Though Christmas decorations are a normal sight at Waterman around this time of year, they were up earlier this year.
“We did it before Thanksgiving because we wanted to have enough time to enjoy it before Christmas,” she said.
While some residences had decorating parties such as these, others had decorating competitions. The men of Alpha Tau Omega divided into an indoor and outdoor group to determine the master decorators.
Senior Jake Mueller was part of the indoor team, and said they should definitely win even though most people won’t see the extent of their decorating.
“We’re losing in the public opinion polls,” he said.
Mueller did give a nod to the outdoor team, however.
“The outside looks better than it ever has,” he said. “It’s very symmetrical.”
Senior Ben Maddock is the official judge, though he has not made his decision yet.
The men of Simpson did not hold a formal competition, but senior head RA Jack Hummel said there is definitely an unofficial competition.
“First floor south was voted the winner,” he said.
Lights and garland line the hall, tissue paper on the fluorescent lights, and a Christmas tree complete the 1FS holiday look. Hummel said that second floor north also had an interesting theme.
“They had the most intrusive decorations for sure,” he said.
Hummel said that Christmas decorating is the most well-received dorm event held by Simpson.
“Everyone loves Christmas, and everyone is willing to chip in 30 minutes to help decorate,” he said.
Santa even showed up for the event.
“Sometimes he wanders onto campus, but generally he likes the company at Simpson best,” Hummel said.
While Santa is there, Hummel said the Simpson residents tell him what they want for Christmas, though the lap-sitting days are over for the college students.
“We have a lot of big guys in Simpson, and he doesn’t always like them to sit on his lap when they’re that big,” Hummel said. “He has tender thighs.”
With or without Santa, though, the decorating events are a beloved tradition for Hillsdale students.
“We feel that we want Waterman to be homey and welcoming,” Buccola said. “And it helps us get through the last couple weeks of school.”
co-head RA of McIntyre Residence junior Lauren Carl agreed.
“It makes it festive, and it’s a fun break from studying because everyone is so stressed,” she said.
