In the week leading up to winter break, students showed off their school spirit with a holiday-themed spirit week organized by the McLean Leadership class.
This spirit week helped relieve stress for students overwhelmed with assignments and tests crammed in before break.
“Spirit days helped me relieve stress this week because each day gave me something to look forward to,” junior Owen Loucks said.
It also helped raise school spirit to prepare for the varsity basketball games at cross-town rival Langley on Dec. 16th, which concluded the week.
“The goal of the spirit days in general is to boost morale,” Leadership junior Michael Norton said. “But Friday’s spirit day is extra important because we need to support our basketball teams against Langley through school spirit.”
Monday’s spirit day was holiday pajama day where students were able to embrace the cozy energy that surrounds the holidays. Ugly holiday sweater day followed, which allowed students and teachers to make bold fashion statements with chunky, tacky sweaters.
“My favorite spirit day was ugly sweater day because I got to show off my ugly sweater,” Loucks said. “Looking at everybody’s ugly sweaters made me laugh.”
Wednesday’s spirit day was flannel day, Thursday was ski themed, and Friday was a red out with holiday hats.
The Leadership class worked diligently to plan and prepare for these spirit days.
“We work a lot with others around the school,” Norton said. “Mr. Newburger and Mr. Olcott have been really welcoming as they let us promote the week on ‘Did You Know’ in order to spread the word around the whole school.”
Teachers embrace school spirit through these spirit days just as much as the students do.“It’s fun to see everyone doing something silly together,” English teacher Elise Emmons said. “It makes the day a little more lively and fun.”
Overall, the 2022 winter spirit week saw success; on Friday afternoon, the final spirit day, the bleachers were bleeding red as the leadership class finished off the week with the annual winter pep rally.
“It was really encouraging to see so many people dressed in red, cheering and just showing support,” senior basketball player Jimmy Higgins said. “It gave us a lot of encouragement going into the game.”
