Lee celebrates Christmas on campus with seasonal decorations
All photos by Megan Jones.
Lee University’s architecture is one of its recognizable characteristics — the bright red brick and white columns define the campus, and the holiday season bolsters this aesthetic with grand decorations.
The entire process of decking Lee University’s halls takes six days with a total of roughly 17 people.
“[It’s only] a few people over a short period of time,” said Merica Stum, secretary to the director of campus events. “It’s just kind of a breakneck speed burst to get it all up.”
With a small team comes great responsibility and planning.
“We kind of have to stay ahead of everybody to make sure that it stays organized and efficient because it’s a little bit outside of people’s normal day-to-day, and we want to make sure that their time is used efficiently,” Stum said.
Planning for the overall operation began early in the year to ensure everything is ready to be hung and lit for the campus and community to see.
“We actually started purchasing trees and wreaths in May of last year,” said Director of Event Planning Kimberly Brooks.
Brooks and Stum were glad they began planning for everything early this year, especially with the tree mishap they experienced only days before the nearly 15-year tradition of lighting the tree in front of the Humanities building.
“The plan was to put the tree up Thursday before we actually started decorating it on Monday,” Brooks said. “When we picked it up on Tuesday and got it here, the inside of the tree was dead.
This resulted in another drive all the way to North Carolina to pick up a replacement.
“It may even have been dangerous to light and set up, and you just can’t do that,” Stum said. “It was the world’s largest Charlie Brown tree.”
Trees and wreaths are purchased and replaced every two or three years because they easily weather outside. The wreaths were replaced this year with larger ones -- a goal Brooks and Stum have been hoping to reach over the past few years.
“It was a good thing to be able to have the budget this year [to buy the larger wreaths],” Brooks said. “We have saved over the last couple of years to be able to do that and it made a great difference.”
On average, anywhere from $2,500 to $6,000 can be spent on holiday decorations for the campus.
“[It] really isn’t a lot when you look across campus,” Brooks said. “But it’s really [about] taking care of what we have once we take it down.”
Brooks and Stum also appreciated the “Buy A Tree. Change A Life,” tree sale on the far end of campus, and thought it was a neat element to see as their decorations were being hung.
“There were probably more community [members] driving through campus than before,” Stum said. “I think it made me feel like our efforts were appreciated even more.”
This appreciation added to the praise the team of decorators already receive, making their work more enjoyable as well.
“As we're unboxing things and students see us start to put things up, we always get comments like, ‘Oh, this is my favorite time. Thank you for doing this,’” Stum said. “It’s a lot of hard work … but it’s absolutely worth it for the students to get to enjoy it and the community — especially this year.”
Junior political science major Maddie Benedickt saw the decorations being hung outside the School of Religion and appreciates how the decor brings campus to life.
“The campus is already pretty, but the decorations make it better,” Benedickt said. “I think it’s an encouragement to students - a signal of the end of the semester - that reminds them they get to go home and be with their family soon.”
