What is The Miracle on Hesperus Drive?

What do the holidays mean to you? Think back to when you were your student’s age. What do you remember about this time of the year? What made it special? 

It’s likely that the answers to these questions are as varied as the peoples and places we represent. Members of our community are from all over the world: some growing up right here in Columbia, while others grew up nearby in Baltimore, the DMV and New Jersey. We have families from the Midwest, the West Coast, and even as far as Alaska! And many of our families came from abroad.

Though we’ve come from many different places, what is the shared experience our students have growing up here? When they think about the holidays, what will they remember?

With this in mind, we invite you to share your holiday story. Drawing on inspiration from a few holiday traditions (mini holiday village displays and making gingerbread houses) and the local holiday attraction, The Miracle on 34th Street in downtown Baltimore, we want you to participate in a new community art project, “The Miracle on Hesperus Drive Mini Holiday Village” at our upcoming LoES PTA Winter Wonderland.

Start by talking with your family about what this time of the year means to you. Then take an empty box, craft it to look like a miniature home, and decorate it in whatever way that celebrates your holiday story. Bring your completed project to Longfellow before the Winter Wonderland, and we will add it to our holiday village display.

We hope that you’ll enjoy some family time working together on this and create a new holiday memory for your student. And we can’t wait to see the holiday village and how it celebrates the richness of our school community.