On Thursday, Dec. 1, MSU’s University Programming Board hosted a Christmas-themed event called “Winter Around the World” for the 2022 Fall Finals Frenzy. UPB hosted the event in the Clark Student Center at 5 p.m. and dedicated it to representing the celebration of Christmas around the world. The event entailed various organizations interpreting the theme based on what a regular Christmas would be for them and the sects they represent.

UPB co-coordinator Adrianna Brown described the event as an avenue for the recognition of various cultures around the world how they celebrate Christmas.

“This year me and Osiel Alvarado went to study abroad and you know we were so hyped when we came back and you know obviously we want to go back but then we started looking around and said like “Why don’t a lot of our events showcase other cultures?”… what we really wanted to do with this final frenzy is showcase what other cultures do around the world because we understand that not everyone has Christmas, not everyone celebrates Christmas, they do different things and so we really wanted this finals frenzy to put emphasis on that,” Brown said.

Brown stated that this year’s theme and its expression within the event was solely dependent on the organizations involved and their desired interpretations.

“We really gave them the freedom to choose what they wanted to do we just said… ‘honestly just do something that you normally do around this time of year.'”

In honor of the theme, the Residence and Housing Association hosted a Christmas ornament-making session.

“So with the theme being Winter Around the World, we decided to go with a traditional Christmas theme of a Christmas ornament making… it’s traditional but it’s probably something that a lot of the students would have done maybe in 3rd grade or kindergarten,” Hunter Moore , RHA president and business management junior said. 

RHA’s interpretation of the theme allowed students to make use of their creativity and the various supplies at their disposal to make the Christmas ornaments

“They just take the fillable ornament and they decorate how they want and then they can leave them themselves a note for five years in the future and then they can open it five years from now or 10 years from now to see something to reflect back on this year,” Moore said. 

Moore spoke of the significance of the ornament making session to him and his team at the RHA.

“I feel like it primarily came on nostalgia because a lot of my team and myself did this in kindergarten so I actually had one of these and I couldn’t open it until I graduated from high school, and when I opened it I got to look back on my second-grade self and what I wanted to do. And I ironically wanted to be a turkey hunter and now I definitely don’t want to do that, but it was fun and it just gave me a piece of mind see how it was, you know, like 10 to 12 years in the past. And so this is just, it’s not that far along and but it’s something you know, when they start their career, they could look back and see how their undergraduate was and they can reflect on that to help them like going forward in the career,” Moore said.

The Global Education Office was also represented at the event and presented an expression of the theme via the countries available within the study abroad program.

“For our inspiration behind the design of the table, we chose all of our study abroad locations and did trivia behind each of those, just to one bring international trivia to the table, but also make students aware of the countries that they could go and study in as an MSU student. And then we also wanted to include some snacks because we know students love snacks and so we have international snacks as far as little coconut international cookies, Brazilian candies and Italian cookies,” Rhiannon Barnett, assistant director of student immigration of the Global Education Office, said.  

At the event there were multiple forms of entertainment present for students. There was a bouncy house, a 360 photo booth, a mechanical bull, a live drawing booth and a table of free exam materials. The event was centered on relaxation during the final period.

“This is the heat of finals frenzy right now, final season, and honestly how we promote this is, “You’re stressed, I’m stressed, everyone’s stressed, but it’s always good to just take a moment and just enjoy your last few weeks here at college,” you know? Some are graduating, and for some this is their first semester, and we want to make sure that you know you don’t only just come for academics. You also make sure you make memories and these last few weeks are going to come by or have flown by because everyone’s preparing for finals, and so we want to put this little event on so that everyone has a chance to either destress, debrief, just be able to breathe for a second and not just think about finals,” Brown said.

Gallery • 2 Photos

Colin Stevenson

Students compete in Mario Kart during the Fall 2022 Finals Frenzy, Dec. 1.