Karen Wils photo Nothing is cuter than a kindergarten graduation. Shown here are David and Duane Wils, 1965.

ESCANABA — The graduation season is upon us!

Decorate with streams of school colors. Play the school “fight” song and “Pomp and Circumstance.”

The graduation season and the Christmas holiday season have a lot in common.

Cards and gifts, family gatherings and food, photos and friends are a few of the things the holiday season and the graduation season are famous for.

The holidays can be stressful and expensive. So can the graduation season be busy and a little on the costly side.

But the traditions and memories generated by celebrating these seasons can never be erased.

For many of us, our very first graduation memory is being on stage at our old grade school building. We sang a few songs with a few finger plays while our dads snapped photos and our mothers wiped the tears from their eyes.

Kindergarten graduations were a special. The passage of time almost visible in faces of the five and six year olds. Our babies were not babies or even toddlers anymore, but actual students ready for first grade.

My own most memorable graduation was my eighth grade graduation from Holy Name Grade School. We had an awesome class of about 80 students who came together after the consolidation of the four local parish schools. Being big eighth graders at the former high school made us feel so grown up.

My mother put on excellent grad parties for all of us kids. Often, graduations were combined. In May of 1977, I graduated from high school, my brother Jim graduated from Northern Michigan University and younger brother Dave graduated from eighth grade. Mom organized one big party for all of us.

Mom made huge amounts of wonderful food for these parties, and all of her sisters cooked, baked and helped out too. Sometimes, our grad parties were combined with cousins. The year my sister graduated from college, my cousin Sherri graduated from high school. I remember helping my Mom and Aunt Sandy with the food and decorations for that party.

Years ago, most graduation parties were in backyards, garages or homes of the students. By the time my kids graduated, it was common to rent a hall for grad parties. So that’s what we did.

It seems like yesterday but it is already two years ago since my daughter graduated from Escanaba High School with a drive by graduation because of COVID. A socially-distanced grad party followed months later.

Each year, it’s fun to display all of the graduation announcements received on a bulletin board and plan your social schedule around them.

Good luck to all of the families planning graduation parties this year. Blessings and best wishes to all of the graduates of 2022. Have a safe and fun graduation season.

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Karen (Rose) Wils is a lifelong north Escanaba resident. Her folksy columns appear weekly in Lifestyles.