Student-Athlete Holiday Memories

DURHAM, N.C. ? Six Blue Devil student-athletes share their favorite holiday memories.

“The most vivid Christmas memory I have is from when I was about 5 years old. I was the first person up at my house and I ran down stairs and just started opening presents. Then I went upstairs and woke my brother and the rest of the family. They were really upset that I went down and spoiled Christmas because we had to have the video camera and had to capture all the memories. I had to re-wrap all the gifts. My family reminds me of it every year. I don't know if it's the best memory, but it's the most vivid.”

“My wrapping skills are pretty good. My mom is an artist and she has taught me well. I am a perfectionist as well.”

“I was really into Lego's. Every year I was looking forward to getting something I could play with and build and be hands on with. Lego's were always good to look forward to.”

Jasmine Thomas ? So. Women's Basketball

“My parents did everything they could to give me and my brother a great Christmas. Even if we didn't get things that we specifically put on our lists we never remembered it after we ripped open everything. It was like it didn't matter. We always had great Christmases.”

“A tradition we have is that my dad's mother, she lives in Washington D.C., and it's hard to get her out of the house. She loves where she's from, she always wants to stay there and for the past four years we have gotten her to come out every single year to our house. That has been a great experience.”

“My team [women's basketball] is adopting a family and this year we are going to have them over for our Christmas party. That will be cool. We use our coach's house as our home away from home. We are always over there for dinner or anything we can get our team together for, especially during the holidays. We had Thanksgiving dinner there, so now we are continuing it with Christmas dinner.”

Andrew Wolcott ? Sr. Baseball

“I remember just opening up a bunch of presents. We would always open up one present the night before. That was always really exciting for me and my two brothers opening up one right before Christmas. That is a fond memory of mine.”

“I remember I got a little plastic train set that we set up. I think I was seven or eight and we would set it up around the Christmas tree. I remember that was always fun.”

Jessica Davlin ? Sr. Track and Field

“Mostly around the holidays, my family [and I] just hang out, bake cookies, decorate the Christmas tree and go to church on Christmas day, your pretty typical family activities.”

“When I was younger, me and my sister really wanted a Barbie Limo and I remember getting that and we both played with it all morning. I was really fun.”

“We would wake up in the morning really early before our parents were awake, go downstairs and look at all the presents. Sometimes our parents would set a time that we weren't allowed to wake them up before. We would just kind of sit waiting anxiously and sometimes just couldn't take it anymore and go wake them up.”

Ali Comolli ? Fr. Field Hockey

“It was always spent with the family. I think that is the greatest part about Christmas, you get to spend time with your family. You are away from school. It is just a really great time to appreciate what you have.”

Amanda Blumenherst ? Sr. Women's Golf

“I remember when I was really little, our bed rooms were upstairs and then downstairs were where the tree was and you could see it when you were coming down the stairs. I remember a few times going down and the whole tree would be covered underneath with gifts. My mom would bring her video camera.”

“When we used to live in Indiana we used to go to my Grandma's house for New Years and then my dad's side of the family for Christmas. That was always so much fun because we would go and see both sides of the family and we would play cards, one game was called Euchre. It was a lot of fun.”

“I remember getting a new set of golf clubs probably when I was 11 or 12. It was real exciting. I actually kept those clubs for a long time.”