It’s that time of year again with plenty of decorations, light, and cheer, as everyone prepares for winter break. Here at Ridge it should be time to start decorating the halls with holiday cheer, but with that comes the time for the most stressful time for a high school student: finals.

While high school students don’t get the fun parties like they used to in elementary school, and before the holidays they get slammed with finals, there can be some fun parts of being in High School during this time of year. The fun part that comes with the month of December in Mountain Ridge is that it’s time for the Christmas music during Friday lunches, cold weather, and cool decorations on the walls.

But with Arizona entering the few weeks of cold weather, it’s finally time for fuzzy socks. Arizona might not get super cold but for Arizona people 60 degrees might make everyone freeze and so hoodies and fuzzy socks are the best this time of year. Besides the fact of having to go to school, Ridge is filled with fun Christmas songs even in classrooms, teachers getting all festive in the classrooms with movies and music, and decorating the halls with different themes of winter when it gets closer to winter break.

It’s beginning to look a lot like finals week. Having almost 2 finals in every class can be one of the most stressful times during December. Kids are hoping to pass all their classes, large study packets are given, and stressing to get all the work in on time. Yeah it’s so fun, the best part of it all is getting to celebrate when school gets out.

Being a teenager in high school really brings a lot of responsibilities when it comes to homework and tests. At most schools, finals are given at the end of each semester and the first time is around Christmas time. The last week before winter break is the longest because of how excited everyone is to finally be on break and be done with the first semester of school. It doesn’t help when you have little siblings who have no care in the world on the last week of school and only have to worry about making a list for Christmas.

Besides all the stressful days and struggles, Ridge always puts everyone in the holiday spirit. While there are no actual celebrations at school, the moment when your teacher says you are watching a movie is the best celebration for the high schoolers.