Upcoming Event: Women's Soccer versus Wake Forest on September 25, 2025 at 7 p.m.
Women's Soccer
vs Wake Forest
Women's Soccer Christmas Memories
12/25/2011 8:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer
DURHAM, N.C. -- Members of the Blue Devil women's soccer team and their families shared their favorite Christmas memories as well as photos from different parts of their lives growing up around the holidays. Make sure you check out the link to the photo gallery to the right, which has photos from members of the soccer team as they grew up.
Happy Holidays from the Duke women's soccer team.
Katie Trees
One tradition that our family has done every year since I can remember is we make Eggs Portugal on the morning of Christmas which is a nice breakfast/brunch dish that has been passed down from my Grandma. It is nice because once the excitement of opening the presents is over with, we have our Eggs Portugal to eat, which keeps the excitement of Christmas day going with good family times. Eggs Portugal is special and a nice tradition for Christmas because we only make it on Christmas morning, so it is something yummy to look forward to each year.
Audrey Gibson (From Sharon Gibson)
Best gift - Santa delivered a trampoline to grandmom & Pop Pop's house
Tradition - new pj's every Christmas eve
Favorite times - just being with family, trips to southern california to visit grandparents & family - picture with some of her 15 cousins, picture with her brothers & sister, & family
Natasha Anasi
The thing that I enjoy the most about Christmas is all the time I get to spend with my family. I don't think that I appreciated Christmas as much as I do now as a college student away from home. My favorite memory is actually from last year when I woke up to a White Christmas. It just made the atmosphere that much more festive. We have a tradition of going to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve and it has never changed. After Midnight Mass, we are each allowed to open one Christmas present and obviously, I choose to open the biggest one. The next morning, after about 3 hours of sleep, we usually wake up to the smell of my mom's Christmas breakfast. We hurry to eat and then, open the rest of our presents. The best present I have ever gotten was my pink convertible Barbie Corvette. All the other neighborhood kids were jealous when they saw me cruising around with my sunglasses on (even though it was winter haha).
Most of the time, the annual family Christmas Party on Christmas day is held at our house with the rest of our extended family but, in some cases, we drive an hour to Plano to visit my Aunt and Uncle and two younger cousins. There we have a big dinner and just basically relax. I love this time because it is full of stories and just and overall good time. That is what makes Christmas my favorite holiday of the year!
Meghan Thomas
Christmas time at the Thomas house is more spirited than that of your Average-Joe-Christmas-loving family. From top to bottom, my mom decks the house out in Christmas apparel with garlands and lights around the banisters to snowmen figures on every counter. Her over-the-top attitude and love for Christmas has rubbed off on my sisters, Katie and Laura, and me.
It wouldn't be a rare sight to catch us watching the Grinch in mid-July as preparation for the approaching holiday. We sometimes have to beg the Grinch of the House (my dad) to put up the lights outside, but eventually the Thomas household is a winter wonderland.
As you can imagine with this much enthusiasm for Christmas, we have quite a few traditions. It starts the day after Thanksgiving when we trek up to the mountains to cut down our two Christmas trees. Every year it is the same: 2 hours per tree to find the perfect trees. Of course once we find them, chop them down (usually cutting down the tallest trees in the forest, thus always finding ourselves with too much tree), carry them to the car, drive them home without being able to see through our windshield and constantly monitoring for movement, put them up in the house, somehow we still seem to have found ourselves with at least one (if not two) Charlie Brown Christmas Trees.
Our Christmas Eve traditions always include a Christmas-themed movie, (The Little Fockers this year), then Christmas Eve Mass, and that is when the festivities truly begin. While my mom is making dinner I track Santa online. By this time, he is usually in Europe. Then my sisters and I make our name signs so Santa knows where to put our presents. These places have not changed since we were little; however there is something about the tradition of writing our signs which must be continued.
After dinner we are each allowed to open one gift from under the tree. Choose carefully... Lastly my favorite tradition, before bed, all dressed in our Christmas jammies, my dad pulls out the Christmas classic T'was the Night Before Christmas and reads to us three girls. These are just a few of our traditions, so I am sure you can only imagine what Christmas day is like at the Thomas house...truly wonderful! Merry Christmas
Bill & Anna DeCesare (Parents of Kim DeCesare)
Kimberly was about eight years old and it had snowed on Christmas Eve. In the morning after the Kim and her brother woke up, Kim's dad made them look out the window. Snow had fallen from the roof onto the top of the garage which was a flat surface and looked like hoof prints in the snow. Her dad told her the reindeer had made the imprints in the snow and she believed him.
Rusty and Ann Jandl (Parents of Libby Jandl)
Each Christmas, the Jandl family went on a snow skiing trip to Colorado for many years starting when the kids were very young. All four kids went. Also, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and many cousins went. A very big crew, it was one where you had to learn to fend for yourself.
Libby went for two years as a baby and stayed in the condo with an aunt during the ski day. Ski school required you be at least age three. At two years and eight months, Libby said she could attend ski school. Somehow we snuck her in the all-day ski school. She did great being by herself in a class of 20 kids she never met. She did great all day with a ski instructor she had no idea who they were. She did great skiing. She was a fast learner. After the third day at less than three years old, she joined the rest of the family on the mountain and skied right with us the rest of the trip.
It says a lot about Libby's place in the family, fourth of four kids. She was determined at that young age to do whatever it took to keep up with the rest of the family. She proved by passing ski school with flying colors that she deserved to be skiing with the rest of the family.
Today, Libby is a fabulous double black diamond snow skier. Of course, so are the other siblings!!!! Happy Holidays!
Tara Campbell
My favorite Christmas memory was when I was younger and I asked for a laptop for Christmas. I even wrote Santa a note because I wanted it so badly. Sadly Santa wrote back that they ran out of laptop parts. That didn't stop me though because the next year I asked for the parts to make a laptop...I didn't get those either.
Chelsea Canepa
Some of my favorite Christmas memories come from my high school soccer Christmas parties. Each year the coaches, parents, and all of the girls would head over to Molly Quiqley's house for the annual party. If Molly's mom, who had been known to dance around wearing whitey tighties over her pants to pump us up before games, wasn't fun enough, there was always the epic gingerbread house building contest. Five teams, one hour, and a race to make the best gingerbread house. Keeping your house's theme a secret was a top priority, as was sending out spies to check out the competition. Trading gumdrops for Hershey Kisses was all part of the strategy and extra points were given for houses that had a soccer related theme.
My senior year I collected together the ultimate team comprised of the creative one, Chelsea Kelly, the brave one, Carmen Abella, the smart one, Jessica Petznick, and the secret weapon, goalkeeper Annie Graham. Naturally we made the front yard of our gingerbread house into a soccer field and sculpted mini soccer players out of marshmallows and toothpicks. We used the tin foil from the Hershey Kisses to make a golden path that led from the house (our high school) to the game field (the State Championship). Along the way we had a small figurine of our rival, Corona del Sol, crumbled and twisted on the side of the path - obviously, we would destroy them on the road to State. The entire set up was brilliant if I do say so myself, but that was mostly because of our secret weapon, Annie, who added soccer goals made of red twister in the final minutes. The rush of making gingerbread houses was fun, but the memories shared with those girls are unforgettable. It wasn't the holiday season in Phoenix without a Xavier Soccer Christmas party.
Bill & Anna DeCesare (Parents of Kim DeCesare)
A favorite memory we have of Kim was when she was around five and a half. She loves animals and every Christmas the first thing on her list was a dog as well as some other kind of animal or reptile. Her father is allergic to animals so we knew we would never get that dog, but it didn't stop Kimberly from asking for one until she was about 16. That Christmas Santa decided to give her and her brother Will, who was two and a half, each a parakeet. Kim's parakeet was nice but her brother William's would bite. Kimberly was always looking for creative ways to do things. The day after Christmas she took the two parakeets out of their cage (with huge gloves on her hand), put them on her pink remote control Barbie car and had them riding around the house in luxury. It was the funniest scene because the birds didn't even attempt to fly away even when the car bumped into a wall or cabinet, or was going around in circles. They just hung out on the top of the Barbie car. Thankfully, we have it all on tape and when we watch the old videos we still laugh like crazy.
Libby Jandl
We have a mother- daughter cookie exchange every year at my house a few days before Christmas. My two sisters and I invite all of our friends and their mothers, so we probably have around 100 people over to our house.
Our family goes skiing every year a few days after Christmas. We go with my mom's entire side of the family- her sisters, my cousins, grandparents. We go to Colorado for three days. I started skiing when I was two because I am the youngest person in my entire family.
Callie Simpkins
Christmas pretty much changes every year for me, never the same group of family or any one tradition but this year should be really special. My dad just got back from Afghanistan on Dec. 19 and was in Virginia waiting for my sister and me to come spend the holiday with him this year. It's just going to be a small group of family from my Dad's side and we'll spend about four days together in the middle of nowhere in our log cabin in the mountains. I'm really looking forward to it!
Nicole Lipp
Most children's love for Christmas comes from the fantasy of Santa Claus and the belief in his reindeer, his elves, his workshop, and the curiosity in how he magically delivers all the presents to every child in the world in one night; however, a majority of my childhood was deprived of this magical aspect of Christmas when my older brother showed me the stash of presents when I was in the second grade. Nevertheless, I played along in believing in Santa for the sake of my sister, who is four years younger than me, and enjoyed watching Christmas movies, drinking hot chocolate, and putting out cookies and milk for Santa on Christmas Eve. This went on until she was in 7th or 8th grade, and I found myself caught in this stage of being unsure if Maddie still believed... to my dismay, my mom and I had started to realize that Maddie did not in fact believe, however, feared that if she didn't pretend there would be no more presents. So, I found myself pretending for my sister who was pretending... To this day, I am still confused as to why some presents read: "To Nicole, From Santa." I think I'm finally realizing why I enjoy the Christmas carols, decorations, snow, ice skating, sledding and holiday treats rather than the so-called "magic of Christmas."
Emily Nahas
I had some trouble picking out a favorite holiday memory because all of my Christmases are the best - it is my favorite day of the year! I my main memory is there is an iron clad rule in my house that I am not allowed to wake my parents up before 6:00 a.m. (yes, this rule still applies even though I'm 18 years old).
Typically my Dad is up at 4:00 a.m., so, it's just my mother I have to worry about. Ever since I was little I would wake up just before 5 a.m. and count the seconds down till it was 6 a.m., or at least 5:59. Since anxiously waiting around a dark house is no fun, I insisted that I go to the 24-hour Dunkin' Donuts with my Dad. (Although I would like to remind everybody that I have an unwavering allegiance to Starbucks). He sits there and reads the paper while I eat my non-fat blueberry muffin and imagine what Santa and his helpers placed under our tree (I am indeed still a believer). The time I spend with my Dad at the break of down each Christmas is something I will cherish forever. I bet my Mom enjoys that extra hour as well.
Ashley Rape
I was born in Colorado even though I live in Texas now, but every Christmas we go to Denver or the mountains for Christmas or at least some of winter break. My extended family including my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins all usually meet there, as well. All of the kids and the dads usually ski or snowboard and the mom's usually shop or go to Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.
Christmas eve we usually play charades which ends up lasting hours. It gets really amusing because of the generation gaps. My grandfather is usually coming up with clues about famous political leaders while we are making clues about the latest music or movie stars. My family is also very competitive so the game gets pretty cut-throat. Then we play catch phrase, and my grandmother still to this day (after playing for several years) always says 'can we turn that beep off' (which is the whole point of the game to not have it in your hand when it stops beeping) --so we always laugh at her. Christmas day we have a nice dinner all together and we usually have a movie marathon all day by the fire and then go sledding in the snow with my cousins.
It's just always great to be with my family and my extended family and everyone is really easy-going and likes to have a good time.
Players Mentioned
D/M
/ Women's Soccer
GK
/ Women's Soccer
F
/ Women's Soccer
D
/ Women's Soccer
F
/ Women's Soccer
D
/ Women's Soccer
PLAYER
/ Women's Tennis
GK
/ Women's Soccer
D
/ Women's Soccer
F/M
/ Women's Soccer
GK
/ Women's Soccer
F/M
/ Women's SoccerKieran Hall Postgame Vs. Notre Dame
Friday, September 19
Kieran Hall Postgame Vs. Miami
Monday, September 15
Kieran Hall Postgame Vs. Virginia
Friday, September 12
Kieran Hall Postgame Vs. Alabama
Sunday, September 07
