Holiday Season 2019
With the Holiday Season officially upon us, we asked our players to share with us some of their traditions and favorite holiday memories. The holiday season gives us an opportunity to step away from softball and enjoy some very special time with our friends and families.
Emily Jones
Family Traditions: Every year my grandma hosts a huge Christmas Eve party with family and friends. The traditional Christmas Eve dinner includes enchiladas and salad with dressing made from a family recipe passed down from her mom. During the party, Santa makes his special appearance and brings the kids gifts. At the end of the night we all sing the 12 Days of Christmas.
Favorite Memory: One of my favorite Christmas memories was at my grandma’s Christmas Eve party when our family dressed up as elves, and my grandma created a winter wonderland in the garage with fake snow. Another year my grandma did a cowboy Christmas where she turned her whole garage into a barn and had a cowboy teach us how to line dance. My grandma always makes Christmas a very special holiday for our family.
Shelbi Ortiz
Holiday Traditions: During the holidays my family and I usually just spend time together and go to family parties and just enjoy all of our time off
Favorite Memories: My favorite holiday memories are just being around family and specifically on Christmas Eve and Christmas being able to see both sides of my family and laugh, catch up, and play games together
Carly Ruiz
Holiday Traditions: Some of my holiday traditions include having all of my sisters, nephews and nieces, aunts and uncles, come over to my families house the Sunday before Christmas. My dad makes a lot of Mexican food. Another tradition is having my aunt come over to our house and we all decorate the tree together.
Favorite Memories: My favorite holiday memory was on Christmas Eve when I was around six or seven years old. My sister and I spirited to stay up and catch Santa. We ended up falling asleep together and not catching Santa. The next morning we made our parents coffee and woke them up to open presents.
Riley Orcutt
Holiday Traditions: I love decorating the tree with my family. Every year my mom gets us a personalized ornament that represents that year. We go through all our ornaments and fill the tree. Another tradition we have is after Christmas eve dinner we come home and open one present which is normally one mom has already picked out. She gets my brother and I matching PJs. We wear them to sleep and open gifts the next morning with them on as well.
Favorite Memories: Christmas eve dinner at my grandmas house one year. It had rained the day before and the sand pits on the golf course were all muddy. My cousins, brother and I all went into the mud and ran around. We came back and the parents were so mad that we got all our nice clothes dirty, but it was so fun.
Jamie Sellers
Holiday Traditions: My favorite holiday traditions are going to my grandparents house every thanksgiving and Christmas eve. Also every Christmas morning I wake up super early and jump on my sisters and parents beds to wake them up.
Favorite Memories: My favorite memory was when my parents hid clues all around our Christmas tree which led me to a giant stuffed bear which was laying in my bathtub
Carly Robbins
Holiday Traditions: One of my favorite holiday traditions is making Latkes with my Grandma. We always make them together and they are the best! Our family also always comes together and has a huge Hanukkah party. We have an intense white elephant gift exchange. Another tradition is having my family over on Christmas morning and eating all of our leftovers for breakfast!
Favorite Memory: My overall favorite holiday memory was when my sister and I woke up super early on Christmas morning because we were so excited and our parents told us to go back to sleep.
Emma Sellers
Holiday Traditions: One of my families holiday traditions is that we all get together with family from my moms side and make tortellini from scratch, using a recipe from my great great grandma. Another more recent tradition we started was all the older cousins get together to make and decorate Christmas cookies with all of our little cousins.
Favorite Memory: My favorite memory from the holidays is making german nut ball cookies with my grandma at her house every year before Christmas, and then eating too many of them that we would have to make more for the rest of the family.
Xophia Venegas
Holiday Traditions: My favorite holiday traditions are gathering as a family with my dads side of the family and eagerly waiting until midnight on Christmas Eve to open our presents first thing Christmas Day. On Christmas Day we celebrate with my mom and each present has a number & my mom has a list of numbers with names that only she knows about, so that we don’t know which present is for who until it comes time to unwrap it.
Favorite Memories: My favorite holiday memories include coming together as a family and surprising one another with the gifts we all ask for and seeing the happiness on everyone’s face. It’s also exciting when there’s a new baby & experiencing their first Christmas with them & watching them destroy the wrapping paper and paying more attention to that than the actual gift itself.
Bella Espinoza
Holiday Traditions: My favorite holiday tradition is walking around Balboa Island with my family to look at all the lights.
Favorite Memories: My favorite holiday memory is opening presents with all of my family right before we eat dinner.