Although Santa Barbara isn’t a city where you can have a typical ‘White Christmas’ due to the warm weather and sunshine, it is still a beautiful town where you can feel and celebrate the joyous holiday spirit! This was especially true the past few weeks here at ELC Santa Barbara. Students enjoyed decorating the Christmas tree in the student lounge. Many of our students had never decorated a tree for the holidays and had a new and fun cultural experience.
In their conversations courses, our students learned about American traditions and discussed their respective holiday traditions with their classmates. One of these American traditions is the making of gingerbread houses, which our students really enjoyed participating in. ELC teacher Karen’s class decided they would take an unconventional route and eat their gingerbread house materials before building it.
They used their creativity to create their own tradition of a…let’s just call it a “deconstructed” gingerbread man!
Since many of our students were away from home for the first time for Christmas or since they follow other religious beliefs, ELC teacher Madelyn hosted a BBQ at the beach! Many of the students participated and had a wonderful time. They even surprised their classmate, Tahnoon, with a cake for his birthday!
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