CONNOR HOFFMAN
Staff Writer
This year was no different than past, as Spectrum Entertainment Board and the Fredonia campus rang in the holiday season with their annual event, Hanging of the Greens. The event was held in the Williams Center Multi-purpose Room and went from 6-8 p.m. It was Spectrum’s way of bringing together the community to help celebrate the holidays.
Provost Terry Brown gave a few words before letting a local child, Ella Horowitz, light the tree and kick off the event. As soon as Horowitz hit that switch, the tree instantly lit up, and everyone gazed at the tree with awe and went to the various activities or sat down and caught up with their friends at the many tables in the room.
“A community celebration of the winter holidays,” said Brown when describing the Hanging of the Greens. Her favorite part of the event is “the children who are here that are so thrilled to participate.”
Horowitz said that she really liked the event and the opportunity to light the tree. Some of the things she planned on doing were coloring, stuffing a bear and eating some of the delicious cookies.
Spectrum planned this event for months and was busy the entire night making sure everyone enjoyed it.
“We start planning it at the beginning of the semester. It’s pretty similar every year, so we always have a solid foundation of what we want,” said Spectrum Vice-President Anna Jones.
Head of promotions for Spectrum, Stephanie Willis, explained that they plan it so far ahead because of the need to book the room and workers, and get together clubs that want to participate.
The event was provided with many cookies and snacks by FSA, and for the entire event, festive holiday music also warmed the room. This event brought together everyone in the community from the students, to the faculty, to the town residents and their children.
Hanging of the Greens had many activities such as the stuff-a-bear, snowflake decorating, ornaments, paper bag decorations, build-your-own blizzard bites and letters to Hope Lodge. Many people participated in those events, but one of the most popular activities was a new addition: a giant inflatable snow globe that people could take a picture in. The line was so long that it almost went outside the MPR.
One of the other popular activities was the build-your-own blizzard bites. Participants were given mason jars and then they filled them up with a trail mix. The main ingredients were pretzels, cranberries, Chex mix and chocolate chips. Its line was almost as big as the snow globe’s.
Various campus clubs provided each of these activities. The clubs involved this year were the Black Student Union, the Teacher Education Club, the Women Student Union and the Residence Hall Association, with help from two new clubs to the event, the Transfer Student Union and Colleges against Cancer.
“Seeing the kids enjoy themselves and getting to do it for free,” said Maegan Kivler, the TSU advisor, when asked what her favorite part was. TSU provided the materials for people to write letters to Santa.“We really just wanted to volunteer and see what it was about and see all the kids in the community have a great time.”
Everyone was very happy with both the event and the turnout. Spectrum was especially happy; “I think this year is pretty incredible. I know we’re already selling out of things and it’s not even 7:00,” said Willis.
Most of the people thought the event was very well done and didn’t need much improvement. Brown believes the only thing that could have improved it was “Santa himself.”