Before the holidays, students have to clear one final hurdle: Finals Week. Leadership helped ease stress and build community with the Winter Spectacular. From Monday, Dec. 8, to Friday, Dec. 12, students participated in holiday-themed spirit days and activities.
“[The Winter Spectacular] helps create a hype around the school and create more of a culture… so we are an active school with an active community. Moreover, because leadership does this type of stuff, more students are aware that there are events,” said gift wrapping contest winner David Wu (‘26).
Preparation
Lots of time and thought went into planning the winter spectacular. None of it would have been possible without Amador’s large leadership class.
“We have committees within leadership and [in] one of the committees…we do things like intramurals. Especially during this week…every day [leadership sets up] a different event,” said leadership student Oeshi Datta (‘26).
The leadership class is divided into multiple committees with different focuses. The intramural committee was in charge of most of the lunch activities. Leadership begins by brainstorming ideas. Eventually those ideas are turned into events students can participate in.
“So, first, we kind of start with our brainstorming stage where we throw up a bunch of ideas…And then we kind of start looking around fast, seeing what people want to do for intramurals or what the campus needs to stay more spirited… Then we start to delegate work to what each person needs to do…buying materials, making posts, getting supplies, and things like that… Then we bring everything on the actual day and we set everything up,” said leadership student Nathan Marek (‘26).
Not only did leadership students bring holiday cheer to the campus, but they learned many valuable skills.
“Leadership definitely provides a lot of very important skills to students on campus, and being able to organize, plan, and execute intramurals and activities like this is a really great skill,” said Marek.
A week full of winter
Each day of the week brought a new themed spirit day and lunchtime activity. From gift wrapping to gingerbread decorating, leadership kept the excitement going. The main goal of the fun was to bring students together.
“The different spirit days [connect students] because if you see other people wearing something similar, it definitely makes you feel more part of a community,” said Datta.
Lunch activities attracted a wide audience of students eager to participate and compete. Participants showed their skill and creativity in contests to win prizes.
“[The cookie decorating contest] looked really festive and fun…[For my cookie design] I decided less is more. I went really simple with mine,” said gingerbread person decorating contest winner Olivia Choi (‘27).
Stress-free before finals
Festive activities were much needed to help students take their minds off the nearing finals.
“The timing is very important to do this kind of thing because, especially during finals season, people can be feeling quite a bit down, quite a bit of stress, definitely something that I think we all feel, we all notice and are aware of on campus… so activities and fun things around this time are really important,” said leadership student and bow contest participant Stella Short (‘26).
