This year, students are getting festive by decorating teacher doors to promote the lead into this upcoming holiday break.

The door decorating competition is a tradition that is known by teachers, but only select teachers choose to participate in this event. This is usually due to insufficient class time because of the upcoming holiday break.

“I didn’t want to have my classes fall behind,” teacher Jennifer Pollum said. “It’s too difficult to get classes off schedule.”

Students who chose to participate, would be asked to gather and collect supplies, so that they may contribute to the door decorating competition. All to strive for the reward of being treated to an assortment of donuts. Along with that, the winning students would also be granted another reward.

“The winning class earns bragging rights,” teacher Steve Haley said, “even for the whole school year.”

This year’s winners that ended up taking home the first place prize was Melissa Kevonian’s AP Literature class. Along with the winner, there were three honorable mentions. Teachers Rebecca Watterson, Bryant Sebastian, and Michael Cubitt.

“I’m really proud of every single student that participated in creating my door,” Kevonian said.

Her students said they were pleased by the outcome of this year’s competition to say the least. Along with the other aspects of the competition.

“It was really fun experience,” senior Lindsey Berg said. “We planned out our door and made sure we made as many references to jokes in the class as we could. It’s a good way to celebrate the holidays.”

Teachers doors were judged on several types of criteria. Such being: overall craftsmanship, creativity, and relationship to the content area.

“This was my first year obviously,” media center clerk Suzanne Hathon said. “ I was very lenient when I first started to judge doors, and then as I went on through the school I began to judge more harshly because the competition was so high.”

Kevonian’s tree won over all the aspects of the judges, enough to give her first place. A beautify light Christmas tree in the center of the door with quotes from “Othello” by Shakespeare. Besides the sparkly lights,there is a favored word by the class strung across the tree.

It isn’t the nicest word in the English language, for those who know this highly offensive word. Ornaments strung in the tree, which happen to be the hero’s presented in the books they’ve read this year. Along with hanging ornaments, there are also broken ornaments, to represent the villains.

At the bottom of the tree, the books read by the class act as presents. To the right of the door, a bright fireplace is presented, with a guillotine, to represent “A Tale of Two Cities” Charles Dickinson, another book read by the class. Above the toasty fireplace, stockings are placed above, with puns on the front of them.

These puns include: “put snow in thy purse,” “fa la la upon thee,” “some eggnog ho,” and a bright banner displayed across the door, saying “AP litmas.” Then finally, a “Santa’s knit list” from “A Tale of Two Cities,” with a list of all the bad characters who deserve to be on the naughty list.