Anyone walking through the Gardner Student Center Monday afternoon probably heard familiar Christmas tunes being sung but with less-than-familiar words.
Students from eight different Spanish classes gathered for the second annual Spanish department Christmas event to participate in competition-style caroling. Small groups treated the audience to Spanish renditions of English songs like “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Little Drummer Boy,” but also performed Spanish originals “Feliz Navidad” and “Mi Burrito Sabanero.” The winning group received a basket of fruit and chocolate after the competition and will have a pizza party.
Quade Peterson, a senior communication major from Kaysville, was a part of the winning group who performed “Feliz Navidad.” He said events like this show there are “a lot of different people here taking the [Spanish] classes.”
“We do events like this once in a while as a department,” Peterson said. “It’s a great program. The professors try to make it fun and light.” He said his group’s preparation for their performance was not intensive.
Luis Arevalo, an assistant Spanish and Latin American Literature professor, organized the event to give students a way to practice speaking Spanish outside of the classroom.
“We are going to repeat this next year, and we would like to invite the community,” Arevalo said. “We’d like to make it an international event to encourage, for example, the Chinese students to come, and if they do Christmas carols in Chinese, I’d like to see that.”
The Spanish department hosts other annual events like the Day of the Dead celebration and Spanish poetry night. All students are invited to attend.