I will preface this by saying, one, I don’t hate Christmas Fest and, two, I am not involved in any of the music ensembles. I wasn’t even able to go see the performance this year, so I can’t speak to the quality of the show. What I will speak to is the way Christmas Fest impacts students and life on campus.
1) HOMEWORK
While I have heard plenty of professors congratulating students on their performance and sharing how much they enjoyed attending, I have yet to hear of one attempting to accommodate for the fact that many of their students are busy for most of the week (leading up to and during Christmas Fest). There may be some teachers who did, but I have heard from multiple people that they received no leniency whatsoever. Some have argued that students knew their schedule enough in advance to work ahead, to which I would argue that several of my professors didn't tell the class what the homework was until 1 or 2 days before it was due. Anyway, it seems like the school could try harder to make Christmas Fest less stressful for the students involved.
2) FOOD
Many of the issues that I have with the food are due to personal preference. I have no problem with the Caf serving lefse, ham and lutefisk (Oh, and potatoes. Those were good.). What I do have a problem with is that many of the other options were no longer available.
3) CROWDS
I’m not a huge fan of crowds, though I’d like to stress that I’m not asking the college to get rid of them entirely. I understand that Christmas Fest is a big deal here and that the college makes a decent amount of money from it. My biggest issue was the crowds in the Caf. There seemed to be plenty of lefse and lutefisk to go around, but of the few normal food options that remained, there didn’t seem to be enough for everyone. My options are already limited because I can’t have gluten, so I didn’t appreciate swiping my card only to find that my choices consisted of a plain hamburger patty and whatever toppings were still left at the salad bar.
4) BUS TO TARGET
While I didn’t particularly appreciate the bus stop being moved down the hill, what I disliked even more was not knowing about it until after I missed it. I’m not sure whether I missed the memo, but if there wasn’t one, please change that. Missing it really screwed with my schedule.
I think that Christmas Fest is a fun tradition and one of the ways St. Olaf makes money to sustain itself. My request is that, in trying to make money over the course of one weekend, St. Olaf remembers to take care of the people they’re asking to go up on stage (as well as the rest of us students) by making the experience as stress-free as possible. I would like to remind the administration that although the college makes money by hosting Christmas Fest guests, those of us that go to school here are paying much more for tuition. Please watch out for us. Thank you.
