In December The Catholic Spirit (a publication of the Minneapolis-St. Paul archdiocese) held an essay contest asking students to write a short essay about their favorite Christmas ornament.  Over 200 entries were received and essay winners were picked in in four age brackets: grades 1-3, grades 4-6, grades 7-9 and grades 10-12.

The Catholic Spirit said 'entries were judged for artistic skill, creativity and reproducibility.'

One of the winning essays was written by St. Dominic School 8th grader Colton Swartwoudt.  

The ornament on my family Christmas tree I like best is two small sticks held together by some string (and some super glue), which form a cross. Sister Bernelle created it. Most everybody has one but this one is my favorite because Sister Bernelle works so hard for our school and created one of those stick-crosses for everybody in the entire school. That was about 200 students when Sister made them. She puts a lot of hard work into St. Dominic School and she doesn’t get many thank-yous. So this is my way of saying, “thank you Sister Bernelle!”

Congratulations Colton!