The start of Winter is right around the corner. What does this mean for a Summit student? It means winter break, a few weeks more and then finals. I feel as though students, including myself, so often forget to take a breath and remember the hobbies that we love. I’m not talking about hobbies you can put on a college application or résumé, but the hobbies you used to do without aim. It’s so hard to make time for the things you don’t performatively love amid the endless loads of homework piled on top of practice, work or extra studying. But, I encourage students, this upcoming holiday break especially, to make the most of your time and reconnect with activities that you used to make habits of.
In the 2004 movie “The Notebook,” the main character Allie loses herself as her daily life grind for success gets in the way of her hobbies and passions. As she grew older, she focused only on self prosperity. She says, “I don’t paint anymore…I used to paint all the time,” as she grasps the loss of her old life.
Her lover replies, “So, paint.”
Summit students, as the holiday nears, I am here to encourage you to “paint” this season; whether that is making art, spending time with loved ones, or pursuing hobbies that simply bring you joy. Coat this precious opportunity with sugar and spice and everything nice!
1: Ice Skating & Other Snow Fun
I vividly remember the first time I went ice skating. I bundled up in a warm hat knit by my aunt and hit the rink and after just a few whizzes around (desperately holding on to the hand rail), my canvas was cleared for the hockey players to practice which destroyed my figure skating career once and for all.
“You can dress all warm when you skate and feel the breeze,” said Summit junior Cassidy Burkhardt, who finds herself at the Pavillion nearly every weekend during winter. “You can just be off in your own world and disconnect from your life.”
Places to ice skate in Central Oregon:
❆ Sunriver Village Ice Skating ~ 57100 Beaver Dr, Sunriver, OR 97707
❆ The Pavillion ~ 1001 SW Bradbury Wy, Bend, OR 97702
❆ Seventh Mountain ~ 18575 SW Century Dr, Bend, OR 97702
Off the rink, when there is a sufficient amount of snow fall, and the consistency is perfect, there are many ways to get in the snow. You can go outside and make a snowman, defying the driveway hindrance with original art. On top of that, you can take a leap into the snow and make a snow angel, or find a nearby suitable hill to soar down!
2: Baking a Warm Batch of Cookies
If you’re in the mood for staying in on a cold winter night and cozying up by lighting a festive scent candle, then why not bake your favorite cookie too. Oh, and if you want to do one better, throw on a holiday movie while you’re mixing wet and dry ingredients.
Cookie recipe to try:
❆ New York Times Delicious Salted Butterscotch
There is a strong psychological link between sense of smell, emotions and memories. Maybe baking for you involves memories associated with bonding, love, and comfort creating core memories; so when you smell freshly baked cookies, you are transported back into a time when your grandmother made you a fresh dozen. So as you compute tablespoons to teaspoons instead of computing mathematical formulas from your homework, I hope it can take your mind off of just your Canvas assignments and remind you of the times when that had lesser value.
3: Making Homemade Holiday Decorations
As the book obviously says, if you give a mouse a cookie, you’ll need to make some arts and crafts. So maybe after you bake your cookies, put them on a platter, gather round a table and get some scrapbooking paper for paper star garlands. What happened to popcorn or cranberries being strung across the ol’ Christmas tree? This is the ideal aesthetic, as opposed to minimalistic and boring holiday decorations (or worse; a tacky TJ-MAXX holiday decoration filled living room).
Easy paper decorations:
❆ Paper Snowflakes
❆ Paper Garlands
❆ Paper German-Style Stars
If your oven is still warm from the cookies, slice up some oranges and bake them. Dried orange slices make for a Little Women themed holiday to add to your other crafts. You might be surprised as to how twisting your hands enough to cause a blister while trying a new origami pattern makes you slow down and breathe. Crafts are low cost, stress-free and can bring creativity and warmness to your home especially in the month of December.
4: Walking Downtown at Night
As many Summit students do, I find myself walking out of the Downtown Bend Library coming from a post-school study session. In the dead of Winter, the sun has already set by this point, and the beautiful twinkling lights strung from the trees along the streets light up the line of shops. This gives you a chance to experience the best of both worlds because there is still time in the day to grab a cup of hot chocolate from a nearby coffee shop, and go into every shop along the street before they close.
Local downtown favorites:
❆ Watershed Roasters
❆ The Commons
❆ Ju-bee-lee
“It’s super fun to walk down there with friends and just talk,” said Summit junior Lexi Rafaeil, who frequently finds herself walking downtown with her friends during the winter. “I can wear cute outfits and take photos down there with all the lights.”
The most walking that Summit students do Monday through Friday is from class to class, rushing the valuable process. Not only does walking statistically increase life expectancy and overall health, it also gives you an opportunity to reflect quietly on the tussle between school and your outside life. So in this busy season, I encourage students to take a walk downtown, to reconnect with past memories and the true holiday spirit.
This upcoming break, take some time to relax from your workload, celebrate the holidays and do these hobbies without seeking a greater reward than connecting with your loved ones. When Allie switched her mindset off of just success, she gained experiences richer than she could have ever imagined. I hope to see all Summit students do the same.
