Home for the Holidays: Travels, Traditions, and Resolutions (Photos)

Madison Kahn, C’19 | Major: Visual Studies 

"My holiday wish is to spend time with my family and that everyone is healthy and that we remain close with each other. My New Year’s resolution is to keep my grades up, prioritize seeing my friends since they are all coming back from abroad, and getting more involved in The Collctve [an underground music and production group] by taking on a leadership role."

Justin Morrison, C’19 | Major: Biological Basis of Behavior (BBB) 

"My holiday plans are not any different than from any other year—I usually go home, relax a little bit, and we usually have family come over for Christmas. We always play games at Christmas and we are a very competitive family. Our favorite game is Taboo and it’s usually guys versus girls, and of course, the guys always win! It usually produces some tension, but it’s fun and love though."

Begum Karaoglu, C'18 | Major: Architecture

"I am going back to Turkey to visit my family and friends during the holiday break.”

Victoria Kalbacher, C’19 | Major: Psychology

“I am going home this Thursday and I am super excited because my finals are all take home and I get to go home to the distant, faraway land of 'New Jersey' and work on those from there.  I am going to take my dog to see Santa and get his picture taken with him and celebrate the holidays in Northeast Philly with my family. As for traditions, we have this weird family flip where my mom is Jewish and my dad is Lutheran, so we celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas. Since we are an impatient family, instead of opening one gift per the eight nights during Hanukkah, we open up all of the presents on one night. And then we have a big dinner, listen to music and open our gifts, and then lounge around. On Christmas, we visit my dad’s side of the family and one of the fun traditions we have had on their side is that every year, we have a bonus gift of a bunch of stuffed Santa Clauses that we call 'Santis.'

"One small thing that I could resolve to do [in 2018] is to write more. I have not lost my drive to write, but I don’t have time to do as much creative writing with school and all.  So, that is something I would like to pick up again when the new year rolls in.”

Daniel Leva, C'21, W'21 | Major: International Studies and Business, The Huntsman Program  

“I am going home during the holiday break to spend time with my friends and family. My family and I usually take it easy during the holidays. My new year’s resolution would be to procrastinate less."

Shaishvi Shrivastava, W'18 | Major: Business Analytics   

"Overall, I have been thinking a lot about immigration, the Muslim ban, and things like that and my holiday wish is that there is some kind of resolution with all of those issues. That would be awesome. On a more personal level, I want a new bike. I have a bike right now, but it’s broken and dangerous, so I need a new one.”

Matt Peters, ENG'19 | Major: Engineering and Applied Science

“During the holiday break, I am going to go home and see my family for a few days and then my friends and I are going on a road trip to Montreal for New Year's. I’ve been to Montreal before, but it’s been a while since I have been there. The friends that I will be traveling with are friends from home, high school classmates, and not from Penn. We always do something on New Year's, but we’ve never done a trip before. This is definitely a new thing for us, which reminds me that I should probably start planning it now [chuckles].”