The holiday season is coming and people are becoming more excited than ever for the excitement that this time brings. From watching Christmas movies, lighting the Hanukkah candles and making traditional Kwanzaa food, the holidays unite people and excite many each year.

This season, families and friends are looking forward to partaking in their yearly holiday traditions and possibly creating new ones. Each year families in the Coral Springs and Parkland community and around the globe celebrate unique traditions either passed down from earlier generations, or ones created as family and friends are added to their celebration.

“I’m very excited to go see my family over Christmas break,” Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School sophomore Maddie Merkle said.“We go to South Carolina to see my dad’s family and we continue this tradition each year because my mom really enjoys our yearly traditions.”

Like every holiday season, traditional and recently released Christmas movies are rewatched by families time and time again. Movies like “Elf,” “A Christmas Story,” “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” and “The Grinch” are some of the most popular during the holidays.

Holiday traditions are made to bring friends and families together, and there are many ways different students achieve this.

“For the holiday season, my siblings and I gather together to play holiday songs and decorate the tree and we bake a bunch of traditional desserts for the holidays,” sophomore Karen Liu said.

Not only does the community participate in Christmas traditions, but other holidays like Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. Traditional foods dating back hundreds of years are still eaten today on the special nights of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, like latkes, beef brisket, roasted chicken, catfish and stew.

“Every year, some traditions we have are putting up the holiday lights and having latkes and brisket for dinner the first night of Hanukkah,” freshman Alexa Kaufman said.

Although Hanukkah had an early start, students still found ways to enjoy it this year.

MSD students are beyond excited for this upcoming holiday break, whether they are staying home or going away. The holidays are a time for joy and for family and friends to have fun together.