Happy holidays: Residents share memorable moments | Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
PrincessSafiya Byers
December 22, 2022
We asked fellow Milwaukeeans for their cherished holiday memories and what the holidays mean to them. Here’s what they said.
Celebrating diversity with Christian friends
As a child I remember spending Christmas with my Christian friends, going to their homes and celebrating traditions with them – including eating delicious cakes people would make to celebrate the occasion.
But since coming to America as an adult, Christmas is very different.
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Now, it’s all about fellowship with friends who have become like family since ours is so far away and learning and adjusting to customs.
So, we try to incorporate as much as we can because our daughter goes to school, and she teaches us all about all these things.
My favorite part is doing all the things that make my daughter believe in the holiday magic: So writing a letter to Santa and then seeing her receive the gifts she wanted; and allowing her and other children to teach us the holiday carols they’ve learned at school.
As a community of people who are so far away from home, we celebrate for our children and because of that, we get to spend every day creating our new community and learning to cherish and appreciate the diversity of this country.
—Prachi Kumar, Riverwest
One year while we were cooking, Alex (baby girl) brought a gift her oldest brother (Keshaw) brought her into the kitchen, and I let her open it.
It was a life-sized doll. She took the doll out, hugged it, laid her to the side and got inside the box the doll came out of! It was so cute!
We all just laughed and took pictures! But she loved the box and played with it for weeks before it was destroyed.
For my family that’s what the holidays are all about: getting together to cook and fellowship over food. It is always a fun time to bond (and for) song, dance and (to) talk junk to each other in love.
—Adrian Spencer-Good, Midtown
My favorite Hanukkah tradition has always been lighting the Menorah.
Growing up, I was an only child, so my family only lit one Menorah every day of the celebration, and I remembered how happy that made me.
So when I had children, I allowed everyone to have their own Menorah. I have four children so there were six of us in total and each of us would light our own Menorah every day of the celebration. So we each used 44 candles every year.
To have eight different Menorahs on our dining room table emitting heat and light was glorious.
To have all that light in the darkness of winter is very symbolic.
Because for me, Hanukkah is about celebrating how humans can bring light to the darkness and how we have the power through our light to make things better.
—Harriet McKinney, Sherman Park
Coming home from school as a child and being rushed to change into our outfits for Las Posadas.
It was the only time of the year when homework wasn’t the most important thing. It was instead replaced by homey warm comfort food, fun with my cousins and goody bags.
Celebrating Las Posadas has always been a favorite part of the holiday season.
It’s a more religious holiday that is celebrated between Dec. 16 and 24. And even though it’s a Mexican tradition, it feels more like a family tradition for me.
Las Posadas involves roleplaying the Bible’s story of Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem and their search for a place to stay. Half of the family is inside the house and the other half is outside of the house. And we’re singing songs.
As a child, I enjoyed the celebration so much.
My mother is one of 14 kids so when I was growing up there were 40 first cousins, and we’d be jampacked into one of my aunt’s houses with kids running everywhere and adults drinking their coffee and enjoying one another.
After the celebration, we’d always get goody bags, some better than others, but there were always goody bags.
And we’d do this every day of Las Posadas and sometimes multiple times a day because there were so many of us.
Las Posadas always makes me think about the value of my family.
—Liliana Lopez, Silver City
Togetherness is my favorite part of the holidays.
It’s helping my grandmother get food done or attending the annual Kwanzaa celebration and seeing my community come together for positivity.
The quality time I can spend with the people I love is the best part.
Usually, a big part of my quality time with family or friends is spent listening to music and singing songs.
One year, my parents got me a five CD boombox and like 10 CDs. (I had to have been in early high school.) All the CDs were great, but the one that made my heart smile was Michael Jackson’s 25 anniversary “Thriller” album.
When I saw that CD, it was like none of the other one’s even mattered anymore. So I put it in my boombox and played that CD the entire day.
And my parents just let me have it. We all knew that traditional holiday music was the usual, but I loved my CD and my boombox, and they knew what they were doing when they bought it. So the three of us sang and danced to that album the entire Christmas.
Even as an adult, that’s what the holidays are for me: a time to convene, sing and laugh with my people.
—Brittany Morgan, Brewers Hill