A two-day Christmas event received the addition of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” this year to the satisfaction of organizers Nathan McKinney, a senior from California studying hospitality and tourism, Tyler Pisciotta and Kei Riggins.
About the event, McKinney said, “[The school] tried one like this last year and it seemed to work pretty well, but they didn’t have a movie so we thought we’d incorporate a Christmas movie to help make people feel more at home.”
Students decorated two Christmas trees in the Aloha Center while sipping hot chocolate Thursday, Dec. 3. According to McKinney, Thursday night was a big success because several people came to help decorate the tree, but as soon as the hot chocolate ran out, so did many of the decorators.
“We used half of the ornaments [Thursday] and all of them got used without us really needing to beg people to put them up. It seemed like something they really wanted to do,” said McKinney. The next night featured the showing of Dr. Seuss’s “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” at 7:30pm, followed by an ugly sweater contest.Friday and was originally scheduled to have students finish decorating the trees, followed by the sweater contest, then to close out with the movie.
McKinney and his team had to alter the schedule as the day went on, however, because very few people showed up for the pre-show decorating, with only one of them wearing an actual sweater. The team decided to start the movie before the contest in hopes that the room would fill as the movie played.
Their wishes were fulfilled as the commons area became packed with nearly 100 attendees by the end of the film and five of them wore ugly sweaters for the contest. The Aloha center was rearranged to resemble a movie theatre with chairs and couches oriented toward a projector screen hanging in front of one of the freshly decorated Christmas trees on the east side of the room.
Popcorn, candy and hot chocolate were provided to ensure everyone had something to munch on through the show. Mina Brar, an undeclared freshman from California, won third place in the ugly sweater contest and said, “It was cool to come and watch a movie, eat food and see some friendly faces. I was a little disappointed more people weren’t wearing sweaters tonight though.”
Judging for the contest was done by the audience, with the winners chosen by the volume of the audience’s cheers.
Second and third place winners were awarded with a miniature cast iron skillet and either a brownie or cake mix. Alexza Garza, a freshman from Texas studying biochemistry, won first place and received a large hot chocolate kit with marshmallows, chocolate bars, cocoa mix, and two ceramic snowman mugs.
Her champion pullover was a black “Star Wars” sweater with Darth Vader’s mask as the focal point and the words “Star Wars” bannered across the top and various vehicles from the Star wars universe wrapping around the bottom. “Winning the contest was very exciting and I like the prize I won. Next year I wish there would be more sweaters to compete against though,” said Garza.
McKinney said, “We didn’t get as many people in the sweater competition as we may have liked, but there was a good turnout for the movie.”
Now that the sweater festival is over, McKinney and his team are planning a Christmas dance for Dec. 18.