It’s the most wonderful time of the year and the holiday festivities are in full swing at RCHS. With exams looming in the distance, the month of December is going to be full of cramming material, but also activities, events, and fundraisers put on by classes, organizations, and clubs to get in the spirit of the holidays. 

The Hospitality 1, 2, and 3 classes, also known as “The Cat Crew” are scenting the halls of the schools with their freshly baked cupcakes, being sold to benefit the hospitality program. Their cupcakes are being sold by pre-order for $2 each with a variety of holiday flavors: Winter Wonderland, Gingerbread Lane, Santa’s Hot Cocoa, and a gluten-free Specialty Snowman. 

Not feeling cupcakes? Cookies are also on the menu, offered by Mr. Coffey’s School to Work classes. Lemon crinkle cookies, shortbread, chocolate chip cookies, and more varieties are being baked up by students to be delivered at the end of the month.

Your four-legged furry friends also have something to gain from this festive month at RCHS. In order to fulfill their project-based learning requirement, Small Animal Care II students are selling dog treats, wrapped in festive decor, along with dog ornaments to hang on your tree. With two different flavor options, the treats are selling for $5/dozen and $2 for an ornament.

For hands-on festivities, the Library’s Maker Bar, an arts and craft hub for students to utilize before school and during lunch, is also participating in the cheer. Students at the Maker Bar can create a homemade God’s Eye ornament using sticks, yarn, and ribbon. To make spirits even brighter, this all happens adjacent to a towering christmas tree made from green books from around the library.

The holidays are known to be a time to be thankful and to give back. RCHS’s National Honor Society chapter and the Interact Club will be traveling to the Virginia Horse Center on Dec. 9 to help with the local Christmas Basket program. This program is a way to give back to the community, through packing and distributing baskets filled with holiday food and gifts to lower-income families across Rockbridge County. 

Senior Abby Hickman, a co-president of Interact Club, emphasizes the important of this program and why it is important that RCHS students get involved.

“Our club is all about giving back to the community,” said Hickman. “The Christmas Basket program is a great way to become involved in the community and to give families something to look forward to over the holidays.”

Anyone from the community can join in the fun on Dec. 10, from packing boxes, to loading shipments, to organizing canned goods, to building cardboard. For more information, visit their website.

To jazz up the hallways for the holidays, the SCA Executive Council is sponsoring the annual Door Decorating Contest. Each first period class will have the task of working together  to deck the halls and decorate the door outside their classroom in a creative, festive way. They will have one week to decorate it however they want to fit the theme of “Winter Wonderland” and will be judged by council members on appearance and creativity on Dec. 12th. The first period class that takes the cake will win cookies and hot chocolate to enjoy one morning during exam week.

Junior Kaley Tomlin, a secretary on the Executive Council is excited to see the doors around the school decorated for the holiday.

“It’s a great idea to do this as we’re approaching exam week and getting into the holiday spirit,” said Tomlin.

Spirits are high and the holiday cheer that is filling the school is nothing short of essential for students to get through midterms