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DWB Holiday Survey
12/25/2014 9:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
DURHAM, N.C. – As the Duke women's basketball team prepared to head home for the holidays, GoDuke.com caught up with several Blue Devils to find out about their family traditions and favorite part of the holiday season.
GoDuke.com: What are you most excited for this holiday season?
Rebecca Greenwell: Just spending time with my family. I haven't seen them in a long time so I'm really excited to be back with them again and have some fun.
Elizabeth Williams: I'm excited to be able to go home and see family. Its fun when everyone's around and we all get to interact and just enjoy each other's company.
Kendall Cooper: I'm just happy to go home. Some people don't get that opportunity or people don't have places to go, so I'm just really blessed to go home.
GoDuke.com: What are some of your family's holiday traditions?
Amber Henson: It's the only time everyone's really home, so we just try to spend a lot of time together. We don't even really go out and shop for presents separately. We all go together and say, 'Oh you want this? I'm going to get you this.' We all buy it together and wrap it anyways and just pretend like we're surprised.
Jenna Frush: We always have Christmas Eve dinner with one of the families that we've grown up with in our church. My parents set a rule that we couldn't get up before 7. The boys used to have bunk beds when we were growing up so we'd sleep together in the bunk beds and watch movies on Christmas Eve.
Azurá Stevens: We wake up in the morning and before we open presents we pray and reminisce on the birth of Christ. Then we open presents and have a nice meal.
Williams: We usually wake up at midnight on Christmas to open the presents, instead of waking up really early. We kind of rotate between us going places and having family come. When my family does come, it's usually my godparents and my godbrothers or some of my cousins coming down.
Greenwell: I have two little sisters and they're all about Santa Claus and Christmas. They're always really excited so they usually wake me and my older sister up on Christmas morning at like 6 a.m. They are always wearing their onesie footie pajamas, and I actually have a pair and my sister has a pair. So we wear those, which is really embarrassing but it's funny.
GoDuke.com: Does your family decorate to get in the holiday spirit?
Cooper: We decorate the outside, decorate the front so people can see. I usually put that star at the top or the angel, but my brother's taller than me so he can do it now.
Stevens: We normally decorate a couple weeks before. My mom always says after we're going to take the tree down, but we never do it until like February.
Greenwell: Our house looks like winter wonderland right now. We have a bannister with garland all up and down it. We have Christmas lights outside, Christmas decorations everywhere and a big tree that my mom decorated. It looks really good.
Henson: The Christmas tree, as we've gotten older, we've slacked a little. It'll go up a week before Christmas and stay up until probably March. But it gets done!
Frush: We usually have one big decorating day. We do the whole downstairs of my house and then my dad and my brothers do the outside with garland and wreaths and stuff.
GoDuke.com: What sort of food does your family enjoy over the holidays?
Williams: We always have a big meal on Christmas Day. It's actually a mix between Nigerian food and traditional holiday food like turkey and ham.
Frush: We always have a big Christmas breakfast. My mom makes coffee cake, so that's my favorite food.
Cooper: My mom usually makes a big pot of gumbo.
Greenwell: A dessert that I really like is my mom's Oreo truffles. It's cream cheese, Oreos and semi-sweet chocolate in a ball and it's incredible.
GoDuke.com: What sort of holiday traditions does the team have?
Cooper: Secret Santa at Coach P's is a tradition. It's really fun. It just brings us closer together. Some gifts are funny, some are sentimental. The one I got for Jenna this year, I got her a coffee mug and you could put pictures in it. So I had pictures of me and her in it.
Stevens: [Secret Santa] was really fun. It was funny seeing everyone open up the gifts and guessing who they thought it was. Everybody picked Amber but she only got one person a gift. I had Ka'lia [Johnson]. I got her a Minion shirt because Kendall told me she likes Minions.
Williams: We have a competition between the classes and we all have some kind of performance, like a song. This year's sophomore class won last year. They had a really good '12 Days of Christmas' rendition. They set the bar pretty high. The Secret Santa we did at Coach P's, Amber got me this nice mug that had 'E' on it and I really liked it.
GoDuke.com: What is the best gift you've given to someone else?
Henson: It's usually the ones that are hand-made. I made some fried apple pies for my dad last Christmas. That's his favorite dessert. Something that has more meaning rather than going and buying something is probably my favorite gift to give.
Frush: My favorites have probably been to my parents just because those are the ones I usually put the most time into. It's really nice to see something that makes them happy after all they've done for me.
GoDuke.com: What is your favorite gift that you received as a child?
Greenwell: My sister and I got a four wheeler. My dad was like, 'There's something outside.' And we ran out there and it was a brand new four wheeler.
Stevens: The best one I can remember is getting the iPhone 4 when it first came out.
Henson: I always liked to play the piano so every year I would get a new keyboard.
Williams: When I was a kid I always liked video games. I still do. I played some yesterday.
Frush: I always asked for Steelers clothes.
Cooper: I always asked for Barbie dolls. Even in middle school I was asking for them, just different kinds. That's kind of embarrassing to admit.
GoDuke.com: Do you listen to holiday music at all?
Henson: I've been playing it since Black Friday, blasting the Christmas Pandora.
Stevens: I just bought the Mariah Carey album a couple days ago, and just some other songs like 'Walking in a Winter Wonderland.'
Frush: Honestly, year-round. Just sometimes.
Williams: I still think 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' by Mariah Carey is my favorite, but I also really like the sound of choirs during the holiday time. It's just so peaceful.
GoDuke.com: What is your favorite holiday movie?
Williams: Home Alone
Cooper: Elf, hands down.
Stevens: Home Alone
Greenwell: Elf
Henson: Elf
Frush: Elf. Favorite movie in general.
#GoDuke
GoDuke.com: What are you most excited for this holiday season?
Rebecca Greenwell: Just spending time with my family. I haven't seen them in a long time so I'm really excited to be back with them again and have some fun.
Elizabeth Williams: I'm excited to be able to go home and see family. Its fun when everyone's around and we all get to interact and just enjoy each other's company.
Kendall Cooper: I'm just happy to go home. Some people don't get that opportunity or people don't have places to go, so I'm just really blessed to go home.
GoDuke.com: What are some of your family's holiday traditions?
Amber Henson: It's the only time everyone's really home, so we just try to spend a lot of time together. We don't even really go out and shop for presents separately. We all go together and say, 'Oh you want this? I'm going to get you this.' We all buy it together and wrap it anyways and just pretend like we're surprised.
Jenna Frush: We always have Christmas Eve dinner with one of the families that we've grown up with in our church. My parents set a rule that we couldn't get up before 7. The boys used to have bunk beds when we were growing up so we'd sleep together in the bunk beds and watch movies on Christmas Eve.
Azurá Stevens: We wake up in the morning and before we open presents we pray and reminisce on the birth of Christ. Then we open presents and have a nice meal.
Williams: We usually wake up at midnight on Christmas to open the presents, instead of waking up really early. We kind of rotate between us going places and having family come. When my family does come, it's usually my godparents and my godbrothers or some of my cousins coming down.
Greenwell: I have two little sisters and they're all about Santa Claus and Christmas. They're always really excited so they usually wake me and my older sister up on Christmas morning at like 6 a.m. They are always wearing their onesie footie pajamas, and I actually have a pair and my sister has a pair. So we wear those, which is really embarrassing but it's funny.
GoDuke.com: Does your family decorate to get in the holiday spirit?
Cooper: We decorate the outside, decorate the front so people can see. I usually put that star at the top or the angel, but my brother's taller than me so he can do it now.
Stevens: We normally decorate a couple weeks before. My mom always says after we're going to take the tree down, but we never do it until like February.
Greenwell: Our house looks like winter wonderland right now. We have a bannister with garland all up and down it. We have Christmas lights outside, Christmas decorations everywhere and a big tree that my mom decorated. It looks really good.
Henson: The Christmas tree, as we've gotten older, we've slacked a little. It'll go up a week before Christmas and stay up until probably March. But it gets done!
Frush: We usually have one big decorating day. We do the whole downstairs of my house and then my dad and my brothers do the outside with garland and wreaths and stuff.
GoDuke.com: What sort of food does your family enjoy over the holidays?
Williams: We always have a big meal on Christmas Day. It's actually a mix between Nigerian food and traditional holiday food like turkey and ham.
Frush: We always have a big Christmas breakfast. My mom makes coffee cake, so that's my favorite food.
Cooper: My mom usually makes a big pot of gumbo.
Greenwell: A dessert that I really like is my mom's Oreo truffles. It's cream cheese, Oreos and semi-sweet chocolate in a ball and it's incredible.
GoDuke.com: What sort of holiday traditions does the team have?
Cooper: Secret Santa at Coach P's is a tradition. It's really fun. It just brings us closer together. Some gifts are funny, some are sentimental. The one I got for Jenna this year, I got her a coffee mug and you could put pictures in it. So I had pictures of me and her in it.
Stevens: [Secret Santa] was really fun. It was funny seeing everyone open up the gifts and guessing who they thought it was. Everybody picked Amber but she only got one person a gift. I had Ka'lia [Johnson]. I got her a Minion shirt because Kendall told me she likes Minions.
Williams: We have a competition between the classes and we all have some kind of performance, like a song. This year's sophomore class won last year. They had a really good '12 Days of Christmas' rendition. They set the bar pretty high. The Secret Santa we did at Coach P's, Amber got me this nice mug that had 'E' on it and I really liked it.
GoDuke.com: What is the best gift you've given to someone else?
Henson: It's usually the ones that are hand-made. I made some fried apple pies for my dad last Christmas. That's his favorite dessert. Something that has more meaning rather than going and buying something is probably my favorite gift to give.
Frush: My favorites have probably been to my parents just because those are the ones I usually put the most time into. It's really nice to see something that makes them happy after all they've done for me.
GoDuke.com: What is your favorite gift that you received as a child?
Greenwell: My sister and I got a four wheeler. My dad was like, 'There's something outside.' And we ran out there and it was a brand new four wheeler.
Stevens: The best one I can remember is getting the iPhone 4 when it first came out.
Henson: I always liked to play the piano so every year I would get a new keyboard.
Williams: When I was a kid I always liked video games. I still do. I played some yesterday.
Frush: I always asked for Steelers clothes.
Cooper: I always asked for Barbie dolls. Even in middle school I was asking for them, just different kinds. That's kind of embarrassing to admit.
GoDuke.com: Do you listen to holiday music at all?
Henson: I've been playing it since Black Friday, blasting the Christmas Pandora.
Stevens: I just bought the Mariah Carey album a couple days ago, and just some other songs like 'Walking in a Winter Wonderland.'
Frush: Honestly, year-round. Just sometimes.
Williams: I still think 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' by Mariah Carey is my favorite, but I also really like the sound of choirs during the holiday time. It's just so peaceful.
GoDuke.com: What is your favorite holiday movie?
Williams: Home Alone
Cooper: Elf, hands down.
Stevens: Home Alone
Greenwell: Elf
Henson: Elf
Frush: Elf. Favorite movie in general.
#GoDuke
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