Homerooms, as a general rule, are usually a bit staid. The routine goes like this: Newscast, a bevy of announcements, and maybe one or two reminders from clubs. At its best, it’s a time for students to build connections with one another and with a teacher they will be with for four years. Most days, though, it’s just fifteen minutes, in and out.
To make matters worse, my own homeroom has, as of late, been lacking a tradition we’d once cultivated almost religiously—the weekly practice of bringing a small assortment of snacks. Food Fridays, it seemed, were going to die a quick death.
In the first month of school, I had almost resigned myself to this sad fate. Friday after Friday passed, and nary a communal snack in sight. Traditions come and go, I told myself. And now that my homeroom teacher was different, it was simply par for the course if certain practices got lost along the way.
Still, in some ways, I felt a sense of loss. It wasn’t that I needed a pick-me-up shot of sugar to tide me through the day, but it was still nice to have been able to walk into a class and be sure that I’d walk out of it with a little pep in my step. Food Fridays had once been a moment of bonding, one that my old homeroom teacher, Mr. Glover, had tried so hard to keep going. Gathering to pick up treats we occasionally got was one of the few moments in which a usually-dispersed assortment of people would come together. Its absence this year made an already cursory 15 minutes feel all the more cold.
Last Friday though, I was greeted by a familiar sight. Immediately upon stepping over the threshold, I saw boxes of donuts, ones that had once been a ubiquitous sight. They were, it was announced, our first foray into a return to our old, cherished tradition.
As I savored the donut, I felt almost emotional. After all, during Friday morning homerooms, there’s nothing that hits the spot quite like a sugary treat. And if munching on said treat is a homage to the years that have passed, it was all the sweeter for it.