All photos taken by Haset Tesfaw.
The holiday spirit week was a huge success as everyone had fun participating in all of the days throughout the week. The days of the spirit week were Merry Monday, a Holiday Pajama Day, Sweater Weather, an Ugly Sweater Day, Lumberjack Day, Winter Wonderland, Whiteout Day, and Crazy Hat Day. Many teachers and students had fun wearing their holiday clothes this week and there were smiles all around.
“This actually came from the officers. The officers had decided around Thanksgiving when we had the normal Thanksgiving football game type of spirit week. They thought that it would be nice that the week before break that we try to get people into a cheery mood and try to organize some fun things. This can be a tough stretch for lots of reasons, you know the stress of holidays, and all that stuff so we thought we’d just try to get a diversion to help get us through these last few weeks,” Michael Lightbody, advisor of the Class of 2023, said explaining the thought process behind hosting this spirit week, “This wasn’t a fundraiser or trying to generate money for prom and things like that, we just wanted to have fun.”
The first day of spirit week was Merry Monday, a Holiday Pajama Day, which most students participated in. Many of them said it was the easiest because a lot of students wear pajamas on other days that aren’t spirit week. This theme was definitely a lot of people’s favorite.
“The themes all came from the officers. We went back and forth on a couple and some of them… when you come to the holidays like ugly sweater day, it's kind of a given. And obviously pajama day was kind of a given. We didn't want to necessarily have it too much like the Thanksgiving Spirit Week so that’s where the idea of the whiteout, or the winter wonderland came and the idea of crazy hat day or tree topper. We wanted … to have a holiday theme and encourage not just like Christmas but any holiday that might take place,” Lightbody said. Overall, this pajama day was a fun and cozy way for students to start their week.
The second day of spirit week was Ugly Sweater Day. There were so many unique Christmas sweaters all around. Everyone had something different on their sweaters, like Christmas trees, Santa Claus, snowmen, and more. It was definitely a great opportunity for students and teachers to show off their festive holiday sweaters and be creative with their outfits.
The next day was Flannel Day which also had a lot of students and teachers participating. Thalyta Andrade, a 9th grader who participated on this day, said “I think it's like the others, it's really fun. A lot of people didn’t know about it though.” Andrade also thought that they chose the themes really well.
“This wasn’t a fundraiser or trying to generate money for prom and things like that, we just wanted to have fun.”
Michael Lightbody
Second to last day before winter break was White Out Day, which had students coming to school wearing all white head to toe. This theme was definitely one of the favorites, and got around to a lot of the students. Thanks to the advisors who helped with this Spirit Week, news got around fast. “I think Instagram and different social media is a big thing. We really had great support from Mr. Mastrangelo, he’s been really plugging this through with announcements throughout the different days and sending things home to the students so I think that it's kind of an all hands in type of effort,” Lightbody said.
Lastly Malden High had Crazy Hat Day. This was definitely a fun way to end off the week. Everyone was really creative with their hats and headbands. Fiona Youmell, who participated on this day, said “I enjoyed this spirit week. I decided to participate because the themes were cute and it just sounded fun.” The Christmas spirit was definitely in the air on this day, with all of the tree hats, Santa hats, antler headbands, and more. The students and staff of Malden High School got creative and ended off this holiday spirit week as a success.
