At our house, the Christmas season begins long before December 1st. Typically, holiday decorations begin to find their way from the basement to their yearly designated spots sometime between September 15th and November 15th. Some years the unforeseen happens, so decorations might not come out till after Halloween, or even in really bad years, not at all. Regardless of how bad things are, however, our family tree always goes up and is decorated on Thanksgiving night.

Thanksgiving marks the official start to the holidays at the Dukicin household. It is the first day all the lights in the house are lit and the deadline I set for myself for putting up decorations — other than spending two to three additional days after Thanksgiving making sure all 300+ ornaments that we’ve collected through the years get put on the family tree without fail.

From Thanksgiving on it is time to enjoy holiday baking, hosting our annual gingerbread house competition, buying and wrapping presents, watching Christmas movies, and reminiscing about the joy the holiday season has always brought to us. Definitely one of the highlights of the year for us.

This year, as part of the Keep In Touch campaign to Make this a December to Remember and as a way to keep the students connected on Keep In Touch, Zack and I have decided to host 25 Days of Christmas Trivia. Every day, from Thanksgiving night thru December 20th I will post a trivia question on the subject of Christmas. It might be from a Christmas movie, holiday tradition or symbol, lyrics from a Christmas carol, or anything else holiday related we might come up with. Some days there may be multiple questions, some questions may be multiple choice, and some questions might be a little tricky. I will certainly explain my answers so there are no disputes, but am only human, so if I make a mistake, definitely let me know.

Questions will be posted via a blog post on the Lutz Keep In Touch website (you might want to make sure you are following the blog to receive a daily notification or bookmark the page for easy access) as well as on the Lutz Keep in Touch Facebook group, at varying times so as to be able to include as many students as possible. 11/28/20 UPDATE: Students have until noon the next day to submit their answer. At noon the question will be closed and the winner will be announced.  Rather than sporadically post, I have set up a schedule for posts. Because everyone’s schedules vary, there are different times on various days, here is the breakdown:

• Monday and Tuesday – 4:00 p.m.
• Wednesday, Thursday & Friday – 7:30 p.m.
• Saturday and Sunday – 12:30 p.m.

The first student, or parent/guardian on their students behalf, to answer the questions correctly will win that days round of trivia. Note: There is only one winner per household allowed for the 25 days. Once you win, you are still able to submit an answer, but only one prize will be sent per household (although if you have two students from Lutz, exceptions will need to be made.) 11/28/20 UPDATE: Even if you can’t be the first to respond, absolutely submit a response to start accumulating points. At the end of the 25 days there will be one Grand Prize awarded to the student/family that accumulates the most points — see the point system explained below.

What do you win? Well, one of Zack’s favorite Christmas traditions is putting up the tree. Every ornament is like an old friend, unique and with it’s own story. So, we have come up with a handmade Keep In Touch Christmas ornament and will personalize it with the winning students name. These will be mailed to the students and hopefully reach them in time to add to their own trees by Christmas eve.

The Rules:

1.  25 Days of Christmas Trivia is open to all Lutz students – Past and Present.
2. All answers must be submitted through the submission form at the bottom of the daily blog post or emailed to me directly at dukicinclan@gmail.com.
3. Students should not post answers directly on the Keep In Touch Facebook group. Any student posting answers on the Facebook group will be disqualified for that day.
4. Winners are determined by the first student to answer. I will post the time that the answer was submitted so there are no disputes.
5. Students can answer the trivia questions every day, but they can only win one daily prize.
6. In order to receive their prize, parents must provide me with their address so I can ship it to them. If anyone happens to want to pick up their prize, perhaps to stop by and say hi to Zack or exchange holiday wishes, we have no problem with that. We live about 2 miles from Lutz School and would love to have you stop by.

Okay, so we are really hoping that there are a good number of students, at least 25, that want to play along in this trivia game. We have had at least that many sign up for the Christmas Card Exchange, so please, encourage your students to participate. The more students that play, the more fun this will be.

11/28/20 UPDATE: As a way to encourage students to keep playing even after they win a round of trivia, we have decided to kick things up a notch. There is going to be a Grand Prize for the student that accumulates the most points by answering the questions correctly and for participating during the next 25 days. This is going to based on a point system. Here’s how it works:

• Trivia Question Winner will receive 5 points for being the first student to answer correctly that has not previously won. If the first person to answer the trivia question correctly is a previous winner, they will be counted as the second person to respond. I think it’s only fair that the winners all receive their full 5 points for winning. 
• The second student to respond with the correct answer will receive 4 points.
• The third student to respond with the correct answer will receive 3 points.
• The fourth student to respond with the correct answer will receive 2 points.
• All other students that submit an answer (correct or not) will receive 1 point.

Points will be tallied up at the end of the 25 days and the student/family that has accumulated the most points will receive a Little Caesars Gift Card.

I will maintain a “25 Days of Christmas Trivia Standings” list on a webpage on the website (link to come once we have all the submissions for Day 1).

There you have it. Long-winded as usual I hope I haven’t forgotten anything. Look forward to seeing how many of you respond and especially hope this is fun for everyone. The first question will be posted Thanksgiving night after most of us will have eaten our fill of turkey and cranberry sauce. The first question will pertain to another one of our family Thanksgiving traditions and should be an easy one to kick this event off.

Take care and Happy Thanksgiving to all,

Lisa, Zack and the whole Dukicin Clan

Any questions of comments, use the form below to contact me.