Where the treetops glisten

And children listen

To hear … sleigh bells in the snow

Each year as December rolls around, children become anxious as the holidays near. The advent calendars begin to reach the shelves, the Christmas tree goes up, lights are hung up on the house and Christmas lists are being written. Both teenagers and adults have been taught the original story Christmas, but what does Christmas really mean to children?

In elementary school, kids participate in all kinds of classes, including a musical class. This class puts on an annual production around Christmas time where the children perform holiday songs. From the attitudes displayed while performing, it seems as if the children enjoy the Christmas season.

“I like Christmas,” first-grader Luke Childers from Westside Elementary School said. “Because it’s when Jesus was born.”

This time of year, people expect children to be excited about Santa Claus, decorating the Christmas tree, and opening presents on Christmas morning. Each of these things come every Christmas, and each year, family’s all over continue with the traditions that have been in their families for years.

“We always make peanut butter cookies and place them out on Christmas Eve and there’s always a bite taken out of them,” third-grader Shannon Hengesteg from Westside Elementary School said. “Then we open the presents right away.”

Not only are presents and caroling kids favorite part of Christmas, but they look for the meaning behind it. Kids are more observant that everyone believes because they look up to the people they around and try so hard to be like them. So by not focusing on the materialistic portions of Christmas, the little children around you will not either.

“I really love the joy that it brings you and the singing,” third-grader Ava Gilliatt from Westside Elementary School said. “I like where it brings you. It brings you to your Grandparents house so that you’re somewhere else for Christmas.”

Children all over love that exciting moment on Christmas morning when they creep out of their rooms to see if Santa had come to visit them. Nowadays, you can go online and look up Santa Trackers and have updates for your kids all through Christmas Eve. But some kids go to the extreme and try to catch him.

“I like hearing Santa, because I sleep on the couch and then I hear him,” fifth-grader McKale Foley from Westside Elementary School said. “One year I slept underneath the tree and I still heard him and then I woke up and I’m like, ‘Are you there?’ and there was a present next to me and I was gone.”

The holiday season is a season where the kids go play in the snow while the adults sit inside by the fire sipping on their hot chocolate. It’s the time where kids get no sleep because they are too excited to see what Santa brought them. It is the best time of the year to become a better person and teach the kids what Christmas is all about. Christmas is the time to be for memories that stay with you for a lifetime.