Lighting of the Quads kicks off holiday season

The seventh annual Lighting of the Quads event was held yesterday to celebrate the holiday season with lights, food, music and the Gingerbread House Making Competition.

Every year the lampposts on the campus quadrangles are wrapped in white lights and the Hopkins community gathers outside MSE Library on Keyser Quad to count down President Daniels flipping the ceremonial switch and illuminating the quad. Bright, festive lights sprinkled throughout the dark quad gleam amongst the academic buildings, injecting Hopkins with winter cheer.

"This is our second lighting of the quads even though we would have liked there to be more lights. It's a little anticlimactic, but we love it anyways," sophomore Alessandra Bautze said.

The Pep Band, along with two of Hopkins' a capella groups, the Sirens and AllNighters, gave musical performances, singing favorite holiday tunes to liven up a student body currently bogged down by end of semester assessments and preparations for finals.

"We're so occupied with finals, so we don't get the holiday spirit. But the night was actually really exciting; we got here thinking that [the quad] was going to light up right at 9, but a couple of groups did their shows and we got speeches; it was nice . . . it was different from last year, they turned off all the lights [before flipping the switch] this year, and [the quad] actually looked much better," sophomore Daniel Benarroch said.

Additionally, President Daniels gave a speech acknowledging that the beginning of December lacks holiday merriment for Hopkins students, characterized instead by late nights on D-level and greasy food at Uni-Mini. However, he noted that the goal of the event is to provide a bit of joyful pep and winter spirit for Hopkins students.

"It's always nice that he comes out to these events. With all the stress surrounding finals and everything, we lose track of what the holidays are supposed to be about: friendship, wintertime and low-stress. Sometimes we need to step back and just enjoy ourselves, and that's what tonight is all about. It's all about getting back into the spirit," Bautze said.

President Daniels also announced the winners of the second annual Gingerbread House Competition, which the Student Traditions Board and the Hopkins Club cosponsor. Teams of students enter and must design and decorate a gingerbread house.

The prize for the winning group with the top entry was a dinner for ten at the Hopkins Club, and additional prizes for the second and third place entries. Additionally, the Hopkins club will showcase the winning entries for the holiday season.

A guest judge, who was a chef from The Hopkins Club, rated the houses on overall appearance, originality and creativity, difficulty of construction, precision and consistency of theme. The first place entry house was entitled "Santa's Ho Ho Hos", the second "Digesting Madness Competently", and the third, "Miracle on 32nd Street."

Students were free to indulge in seasonal favorites like hot chocolate, hot cider, donuts and cookies. The battle to obtain these snacks hearkened to the intensity of Black Friday shopping.

"It was extremely difficult to get a donut. It frustrated me that the lines were really long because I was cold and wanted hot chocolate. If anything though, the huge crowds of people generated body heat," freshman Abraham Añonuevo said.

Other problems with the execution of the event had to do with the sound system, which inhibited attendants from hearing the musical performances and speeches. However, most students did not allow the poor system to impact their night.

"I love the All-Nighters, and I thought they were great. It was really hard to hear, but they are my favorite a capella group," sophomore Amanda Mueller said.

Alumni who came back for the event maintained their fond memories of the tradition and believed it even improved from that of years past.

"It was actually cool, we just couldn't hear any of the people singing. The performances were good, but the sound system was bad," Veronica Lopez, who graduated last year, said.

Some students enjoyed the event, but wished that it could have been expanded and lengthened, which could possibly resolve space and timing issues.

"This was my first Lighting of the Quads. I couldn't really see because there were too many people. It was great, I think it went by too quickly," junior transfer student Jenny Cho said.