Students serve their peers Salvadoran pupusas, filled with cheese, pork, and beans. 

DIXON, CA (MPG) - Dixon High School at 555 College Way recently held a holiday event to honor traditions and practices worldwide.

The event, open to the public, showcased festive decorum, having four fully-furnished Christmas trees at each corner of the gym. Students entered through double doors lined with massive candy canes, finding themselves in a winter wonderland of music, snacks, a photo area and a student wearing an inflatable gingerbread man costume.

Several booths lined the outer edges of the gym, each representing one of 15 countries, including Italy, Germany, El Salvador, China, Sweden, Iceland, Israel, Scotland, Palestine, Japan, France and Indonesia. 

Office coordinator Olivia Wasser and Dixon High School Principal Angela Brown ring in the holiday season in style.

Dixon Community Theater’s Kelly Pidgeon James made an appearance, manning a table representing the Bahamas. Dixon Community Theater also offered an immersive experience based on Taiwan’s Lantern Festival. Guests were asked to enter a covered tent with a projector that displayed an array of floating lanterns made of rice paper. These lanterns are released on the 15th day of the first month of the lunar calendar to celebrate the Lunar New Year, which will fall on Jan. 29. 

Each booth presented new, fascinating information, each boasting the holiday traditions, music and activities of its chosen country. What appeared most popular with the students was the food offered. Notable mentions include the El Salvador booth serving pupusas (filled with pork, cheese and beans), the German booth’s potato pancakes and the Italian booth’s Italian soda. 

Neil Henderson entertains the entering students with his bagpipe skills as Kelly Pidgeon James prepares her booth

Students, both participants and patrons, were excited about the experience. Janiah Lattimore, part of the team that crafted the England booth, was proud to discuss her project.

“For our assignment, we’re doing Christmas around the world, as you can see,” said Lattimore. “We’re doing England. We have Christmas crackers where, when you pull it apart, the person who breaks it gets the prize.”

Lattimore illustrated how the Christmas crackers work, further emphasizing her hard work on this project.