Holiday cheer and fierce competition meet in St. Dominic’s Christmas Door Decorating contest! This year each family time will decorate their classroom door; whereas, prior years have seen a hallway or multiple hallways decorated by the houses.
Forty-two total doors around the building will shout Christmas as they spruce up the school with festive decor and bring smiles to the students’ faces. House Dignitas Mentor, Ms. Katie Eilerman, has experience from a prior teaching job of decorating doors instead of hallways.
“I felt like it brought the family together a lot more as you’re working with just your family to put your door together. The whole point of it is a community building kind of creative outlet during a stressful time of the year,” Ms. Eilerman said.
The six houses have each been assigned a Christmas character, which the doors must reflect. Here are this year’s epic match-ups: House Dignitas featuring Charlie Brown, House Gaudium hosting Buddy the Elf, House Caritas spotlighting the Grinch, House Temperentia sponsoring Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, House Virtus presenting the Elf on the Shelf, and last but not least House Gratia showcasing Scrooge.
Gratia’s character may be a bah humbug, but it doesn’t sound like their hallway will be. House Gratia has two valuable teacher assets in their lineup: art teacher Ms. Bennett Outman and theater director Mrs. Kelly Hobbs, who has offered styrofoam and cardboard to help with the decorating. Gratia’s three creative captains dreamed up the decorating plan.
“Because Scrooge has different times and periods in his life, we’ll take a different time period for each door” House Gratia Mentor Mrs. Angela Juergensmeyer said.
House Caritas plans to take those walking its halls through the Grinch’s story scene by scene, starting with the upstairs hallway and finishing in the downstairs hallway. With the switch from decorating a whole or partial hallway to decorating doors, Caritas Head of House Caden Kannady acknowledges that they will have less room to show off their decorating prowess, so they will have to make the most of the space.
“We need a lot of paper, a lot of green… some Christmas lights… some 3D stuff, like fake snow,” Caden Kannady said.
Good luck to all the houses! May the most Christmas-spirited house win!
