Walking Down a Winter Memory Lane

Stuyvesant students describe their most wholesome or funniest holiday moments.

“Here, I’ll tell the story of how I found out Santa wasn’t real. So, I was in Atlanta at my aunt’s house, where we usually spent Christmas. I’m a really spotty sleeper, [especially] when I’m really excited or stressed, like on Christmas morning. So I woke up at four or five in the morning on Christmas. My aunt wakes up at four every morning as well to [do] yoga or meditation or something. We woke up at the same time Christmas morning but obviously, instead of meditating, she had to go wrap and arrange the presents under the tree. She was getting everything ready, and I went downstairs to go get water. I didn’t even realize it was Christmas morning yet, and I see her run across the living room with all of the presents in her arms. When she sees that I’ve seen her, she drops the gifts and tries to convince me that she was just ‘rearranging them,’ but it was too late.” —Shivali Korgaonkar, sophomore

“A few years ago on my best friend's birthday, December 11, she, her friend group, and I were out celebrating her birthday, and it started to snow for the first time that year. My friends and I had just heard that the people you are with for the first snow of the year are the people you will spend the rest of your life with, so we all got emotional, and started crying.” —Sunny Bok, junior

“There’s this bear. We had this holiday closet thing where people put all the Halloween [and] Christmas stuff and Hanukkah candles. There’s this big polar bear that’s so soft and squishy. I don’t know where it is. But when my sister and I were younger, we used to fight over it and play with it. It’s wholesome and also funny because we'd like, throw it around.” —Ceci Bachana, senior

“My grandpa accidentally ate dog food thinking it was some kind of cracker. He said it tasted like bacon.” —Stacy Kim, Junior

“Basically ever since my brother got into Stuyvesant—that was when I was around ten—we’ve rented an apartment in Manhattan, because I live really east in Queens and it’s pretty far away. We still have the old house and we go back on weekends and holidays. The really funny thing last year was that we’d put up the Christmas tree in the old house and ever since then we’ve never taken it down. We’ve had Christmas in the spring, in the summer, and in the autumn. Now, time for the real thing.” —Sophie Jin, freshman

“I went ice skating with my friends. My friend is really clumsy: she was falling and she grabbed [onto the people around her] and almost knocked over the kid in front of her and behind her, but she still fell.” —Megan Tan, sophomore

“When I was still in elementary school, there was this spring festival during which I competed with my cousins on how many dumplings we could eat and ended up eating way too [many], like 20 to 30.” —Mary Shang, Junior

“We bought one of those gingerbread house-making kits, with the pictures on the box looking all perfect. But then I realized making cookies stand and stick together was hard, even with icing. It all collapsed, but my family and I still ate it because it tasted good and was a bonding experience.” —Emily Chen, junior

“When I was eight, I thought that the New Year's ball drop involved an actual giant ball that got dropped in the middle of Times Square and so when we went to Times Square that year, I was caught by surprise when I saw what actually happened.”—Abir Taheer, junior

“Every Christmas, it is a tradition that my sister, my uncle, and I all make a huge lasagna together. It is muy delicioso.” —Zoya Bukhari, sophomore

"I was spending Christmas with some family friends and we were going back home [by] car. There were 12, nine maybe, of us and the car sat five people. I had to sit on the floor because one, I'm always the person they pick for this because I can fit, and two, no one else wants to sit on the floor […] So I sat on the floor, and I was falling asleep because I get drowsy on car rides…and I felt my phone fall out of my pocket, and I was like “eh, I'll pick it up later,’ and I fell asleep. It was one of those ten-dollar phones you get off of eBay. That's how I lost my phone. I was so ecstatic at that point. ‘Oh God it's gone! Finally!’ So that's how I lost my phone coming home from Christmas." —Ethan Lam, sophomore

“So me and my sister woke up, and it was snowing the night before. There was like a foot and a half of snow, so we went out and started throwing snowballs but eventually ended up building a fort.” —Alisha Heng, junior

“My funniest holiday moment happened in middle school. My friend had recently bought me a survival minigame, and we finally reached winter in the game. We felt so pro until the exclusive holiday boss decided to barge into our basement [and] smash it into pieces. I started screeching so hard because I spent 30 minutes trying to align everything in the base. To this day I still remember how much I sucked at this game. My parents still think I’m crazy, by the way.” —Vivien Li, sophomore