Most people celebrate Christmas inside their homes with the heat on and the fire blazing. This holiday is typically correlated with snow, hot chocolate, and freshly baked cookies. However, for some people, the Christmas season means laying out on a beach in the scorching heat. Junior Julia Coffman’s family puts a tropical spin on the typical Christmas season.  

“Instead of my parents getting my siblings and I gifts, they take us on a trip,” explained Coffman.

Coffman and her family don’t succumb to the cold during the holiday season, but instead prepare for the heat. They’ve gone on trips to many warm places like Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Grand Cayman, Los Angeles, Hawaii, Mexico, Israel, and Jordan. “The best part about being somewhere warm is just being able to chill on the beach,” said Coffman.

Coffman looks forward to these tropical vacations every year and enjoys the relaxation that the warm weather brings her. She does not feel like she misses out on the “traditional” white Christmas because she still experiences the fierceness of the freezing weather in Michigan before and after her vacations.

“I still correlate Christmas more with cold because I think about when we are always home for Christmas Eve,” said Coffman.

Because her family stays home for Christmas Eve, Coffman is able to experience both a warm Christmas in a tropical location, while still enjoying a white Christmas Eve back at home. On the other hand, there are some people who would never even dream of replacing a cold Christmas for a hot one. Junior Mallory Evatz strongly believes that Christmas should be spent at home.

“Christmas should always be spent at home with snow falling outside. I could never imagine doing anything else,” said Evatz.

Evatz has been keen on this belief for as long as she can remember. Her early memories of sledding and ice skating with friends and family during the Christmas season contributed to this belief and have stuck with her every year. “So many of my Christmas traditions involve the snow or cold weather, so whenever I think of Christmas, I think of these traditions. The idea of being on a beach or somewhere hot for Christmas just seems wrong,” Evatz said.

Whether or not Christmas is being spent in the scorching heat on a beach or in below freezing temperatures in Michigan, both Coffman and Evatz agree that the best part of the holiday is being with family.

“Christmas is the best time of the year and I wouldn’t trade the time with family for anything else” said Evatz.