The County Chronicle

The online newspaper of Loudoun County High School

Jan
12

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Snowfall and Smiles: students and staff share their favorite holiday traditions

Category: Arts and Entertainment Tags: , ,

Olivia DeWan | staff writer

The holiday season is just around the corner, but because of COVID-19 people are looking forward to the holidays even more. The holidays are great for students to take a break from the stress and hard work that school requires.

“I’m looking forward to not sitting at a computer for six hours,” junior Kayla Spratt said.

The break also allows students to spend more time with their loved ones.

“I’m looking forward to spending more time with my family and getting more sleep,” sophomore Maggie Hronik said.  

3. Maggie Hronik bakes lots of Christmas cookies. A few years ago, she was helping her mom make whisky cakes. Photo courtesy of Maggie Hronik.

Another thing the holidays are great for is holiday traditions. “Every year on Thanksgiving my grandparents give us a nutcracker,” said junior Lily Takemoto. “We have over twenty nutcrackers that we set up each year.”

Of course, with COVID Takemoto’s tradition changed during this year’s holiday. “This year, because we couldn’t see any family, my grandparents just mailed us a nutcracker,” she said.

On a different set of traditions, sophomore Elena Wigglesworth celebrates the holidays in a different way. “I make gingerbread houses, bake cookies and other desserts, decorate for Christmas, and spend time with my friends and family.”

2. Elena Wigglesworth does lots of baking around the holidays. Last year she made a bûche de Noel for Christmas Eve dessert. Photo courtesy by Elena Wigglesworth.

Then again, COVID interrupted her tradition. “I won’t get to see my extended family this year,” she said. “Though I should be able to do most of my other traditions.”

Similarly to Wigglesworth’s traditions, Hronik also does baking. “Every year we make cookies,” she said. “Because of COVID we have more time to make them.”

Instead of impacting her tradition in a negative way, COVID allowed her to spend more time with her favorite holiday tradition.

“My parents are with us on every Christmas Eve,” biology teacher Crystal Wolfgang said of her usual holiday plans. “We go to church and every Christmas morning we have cinnamon rolls and open presents.”

1. Crystal Wolfgang and her family watched “Elf” last Christmas while her parents visited. Photo courtesy by Crystal Wolfgang.

Unlike Hronik, COVID is going to make a significant change to Wolfgang’s holiday.

“My parents won’t be there this year because of an issue with moving and needing to be free of COVID,” she said. “It will be the first time of my son’s twenty one years that he won’t have his grandparents around on Christmas morning to be with him.”

If students were at school, they would have participated in a number of activities surrounding the holidays, most of which have been put on hold during the pandemic.

“My favorite thing I did at school before winter break was working with the UNICEF Club,” said sophomore Bella Whelchel. “I felt like I was helping people.”

Usually, the week leading to winter break is filled with class parties and movies.

In Bryan Boeing’s Spanish class, students would watch the movie “Coco” and drink Mexican hot chocolate.

Though this year, students didn’t get a movie or a party, but some students didn’t seem to mind at all.

“I can’t wait for winter break,” said Whelchel. “It gives you a chance to relax and not worry about school.”

 

Disclaimer: In compliance with governor’s orders, all school-sponsored activities followed physical distancing and mask requirements, but due to the nature of COVID-19 limiting school activities, the community was invited to submit pictures for the newspaper. Many of these photos occurred on private residential property and therefore may not conform to the regulations binding school-sponsored activities.

Jan
4

By

SCA emphasizes student participation for holiday challenges

Category: End Zone Tags: ,

Michaela Scott | editor-in-chief

Sophomore Hailey Kalinowsky’s submission for the SCA Door Decorating Contest. Kalinowsky was the sole finalist for the holiday challenge because her door best reflected the cheery holiday spirit. Photo courtesy of Hailey Kalinowsky

This year the Student Council Association hosted numerous schoolwide contests, including the Holiday Door Decorating Challenge to help kickstart the joyous season. The door decorating event consisted of a contest between photos submitted by students of their festive front door or house entrance.

“The rules of the event were simple,” sophomore SCA member Austin Trinh said. “Starting from the beginning of the month of December until December 14, students interested were to take a picture of their decorated doors and submit them via a Google Form in Schoology. All submissions would then be compiled and one submission would be picked by the school faculty to be the ultimate winner.”

As a representative of SCA, Trinh was given the opportunity of creating the initial Google Form for the holiday door decorating contest. His tasks were to organize each Google Form and photo submitted regarding the challenge. In addition, he assembled the sequence of events the challenge would undergo and what the timeline of the contest would look like.

“My swift decision to volunteer and my organizational suggestions unofficially made me the director of the event,” said Trinh. “Offers like these have definitely come up in the past and they most certainly look intimidating, especially to a first-time SCA member like me, but the experience was rewarding in the sense that it gave me a humble feeling of responsibility, and it was interesting seeing things from an insider’s scope instead.”

Officially, SCA has only hosted the holiday themed challenges twice, however they hope to continue the tradition in the future. The idea to host events during the holidays initially began during the previous school year in the springtime for seniors only; according to the SCA, the events had excellent past success.

“We thought it would be nice to bring the whole student body together, instead of just seniors,” Trinh said. “We thought students would enjoy another holiday door decorating event, but with the winter holidays being the theme.”

Overall, the submissions were low, although a unanimous winner was decided by the staff and was awarded a $15 DoorDash gift card. The faculty voted through an online ballot and analyzed each submission to see which best reflected the festive spirit of the winter holiday season.

“I was so surprised that I had won, you have no idea,” said sophomore Hailey Kalinowsky. “It was a fun sibling bonding experience because my sister, Gianna Kalinowsky, and my brother, Sean Kalinowsky, helped out as well with all the decorating.”

Kalinowsky explained that she participated in the contest using only the decorations stored away from previous years. She expressed how this was more of a fun activity rather than a competitive one because she assumed there would be lots of competition within the other students’ submissions.

“I wasn’t that determined because I thought there would be much better ones out there,” said Kalinowsky. “But, the lights were my favorite because they really illuminated the door.”

Overall, the challenges were a success and a great way to kick off the holiday season for the student body. However, the SCA has reported that participation toward spirit events has been drastically low ever since distance learning has started.

“We have been deliberately working on our advertising to encourage more students, so every spirit submission brings a warm heart to SCA now that we are in some weird times!” Trinh said. “I just wanted to enforce that we need spirit more than ever during this school year!”

Jan
4

By

News Brief: SCA holds food drive and pies teachers

Category: News Tags: ,

Emily Banner | staff writer

Principal Michelle Luttrell is pied after the milestone of 300 cans is reached.

The SCA hosted a canned food drive between December 1 and 14 to give food to Loudoun Hunger Relief. Students brought food to school and donated it in a drop-off box outside. The SCA set up goals to incentivize the student population, all of which were reached. As each milestone was reached, a teacher was pied. The victims included science teacher Kayla Urban, social science teacher James Carr, math teacher Mel Hefty, PE teacher Joel Caruso, and finally at 300 cans, principal Michelle Luttrell was pied. Each pie-ing was filmed and then shared with the school over morning announcements.

“Mr. Prince asked me if I’d volunteer to get a pie in the face for Loudoun Hunger Relief and honestly I didn’t hesitate to say yes,” said Urban. “It’s a great cause and honestly it was a really fun thing to do for the students. I wanted some of them to be in person to experience it, so I brought my advisory class down to my front yard to experience the entire thing live during the homeroom time. My five-year-old and eight-year-old talked about that for weeks. 2020 has been tough. Pies in the face are funny and bring joy. I’d do that for any cause right now to make the students smile.”

In total, LCHS raised 471 food items for Loudoun Hunger Relief.

Dec
4

By

Pandemic Changes Thanksgiving Celebrations

Category: End Zone Tags: , ,

Emily Banner | staff writer

Summer Orledge | staff writer

Junior Callie Shaw visits her family home in Topsail Beach, North Carolina. Shaw celebrated Thanksgiving with her sisters by the ocean, while following COVID-19 precautions.

Thanksgiving is usually celebrated with family, but this year the pandemic made that far more difficult. With several states imposing restrictions on social gatherings, many Captains scaled down celebrations, celebrated virtually, or changed traditions.

“We’re just staying home and having a small meal,” said Emily Yasko, a senior at LCHS. “The pandemic definitely changed our usual plans. Usually we go to visit family in Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving and have a big turkey with lots of family. But because of COVID everybody is really hesitant to meet up and ultimately we decided not to do that this year.”

Junior Chase Breda also cancelled travel plans. “For this Thanksgiving I was supposed to go to New York to visit family but can’t due to Covid. I will be practicing Thanksgiving this year with my close family instead which should still be fun.”

Many people met up with fewer family members than normal due to pandemic restrictions. “We are planning to still make some family traditional food, however, it will only be us four. Friends and extended family would not be attending because of the pandemic,” junior Sarah Charah said.

Junior Sarah Moshrefi had a similar plan. “We were initially going to invite my aunts, uncles, and cousins but to keep it on the safer side, it’s just going to be me, my mom, dad, and brother,” she said.

Other people are moving their celebrations outdoors for safety. “We are having our Thanksgiving dinner on our screened-in porch,” said English teacher Arlene Lewis. “We bought one of the heaters restaurants use for outdoor dining. We tried it out this week. With jackets on and blankets around our legs, it was really surprisingly pleasant. Thanksgiving is actually supposed to be pretty mild, so I think we will be fine having dinner with our son, his wife, and our little granddaughter.”

Freshman Cat Pizzarello also celebrated outside. “My family and I had a picnic outside with my grandparents and we ate traditional Thanksgiving food, while playing fun thanksgiving games and listening to music,” she said.

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