Sarah Carter ’24

News Editor

This past Sunday, members of the Best Buddies program amassed for the final event of the  semester – the Best Buddies Holiday Bash. Attendees of the event and their Buddies donned themselves in their best holiday attire – from hand-knit Christmas sweaters to Santa Claus blazers and antler-style headbands. At the event, students gathered together at tables shaped in a rectangular formation to view a slew of holiday films; the requests were ongoing and successive – from Ice Age to Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas and The Grinch. 

While students and their Buddies mingled about holiday plans and festivities, members of the Best Buddies e-Board distributed materials for sugar cookie-decorating – an assortment of icings and sprinkles. One-by-one students rose from their tables to retrieve any number of home-baked cookies; many could not refrain from taking a bite before returning to their seats. Once having completed their decorating designs, students and their Buddies posed with their creations for a number of photos. Attendees also busied themselves with Christmas-themed coloring activities and included these in their group photos too.

Once the cookie supply had depleted itself and the decorating activities began to slow, students were partitioned into groups for a round of Holiday Jeopardy. Buddies served as the group leaders of their separate teams and selected from a host of topic categories, including Holiday Songs, Holiday Movies, Holiday Traditions, and more. 

This was a game of Jeopardy dissimilar to any other. The Buddies were quick to dispense with rules of the traditional gameshow and devise rules of their own instead. If a team could not formulate a response to the question they had chosen, another team would interject straight away with a shout in lieu of a buzzer – something that would elicit bouts of laughter from the audience of competing teams. Teams also had a tendency of sharing their responses out loud for other teams to hear – abandoning the clandestine nature of the game and uniting the teams as a somewhat collective whole. After all questions had been responded to,  two teams received the same score. While the e-Board members suggested a tie breaker, the Buddies insisted that no changes be made – winners were not necessary as everyone had enjoyed themselves already.

E-board members closed the event by wishing all Buddies and students a pleasant holiday and alluded to the planning of future events in the spring semester, which include the Best Buddies Friendship Walk in May and a potential collaboration with the WooSox. If you are interested in joining Best Buddies and taking part in a one-on-one friendship with a Buddy, please contact bestbuddies@holycross.edu or request to join on MyHC!!

Photo courtesy of Best Buddies International