“Every year since 1911, at 5:30 on Christmas Eve, residents of my building have gathered, each with a candle, to sing carols on the front steps. No one, of course, is left from the earliest years of the caroling, but there are several residents who have been singing for over 60 years. It is best when it is snowing, but the caroling, now with many if not most of the singers not exactly celebrating Christmas, provides an annual reminder of how traditions at their best can create new communities that were unimaginable when the ‘tradition’ was first begun.” — David Scott Kastan, George M. Bodman Professor of English

“My favorite holiday traditions are (1) giving gifts and (2) sleeping in.”– GerShun Avilez, Assistant Professor of English and African American Studies