The Christmas spirit already is evident in North Vernon. All you have to do is look on downtown shop windows.
Members of Jennings County High School’s National Art Honor Society began painting Christmas scenes on the windows Nov. 3 to 6. This year, 17 shops signed up to let students decorate their windows.
The only guideline the students had was that this year’s theme was Christmas through the ages. This prompted students to depict scenes from the 1820s to the 1990s. With this, too, came myriad imagery from the chosen time.
Nathan Vogel, a senior and the current president of NAHS, chose to portray the 1990s by including characters from popular 1990s cartoons such as “Rugrats” and “Spongebob Squarepants.”
“I felt those characters were the easiest to identify with the time. They were the characters many of us (art honor society members) grew up watching,” Vogel said.
Other pieces created by students included a hippie version of Santa Claus, the leg lamp from “A Christmas Story” and a couple kissing under the mistletoe.
For Vogel and many other senior students this is their fourth year partaking in these festivities. These students all think fondly of being able to decorate their town and get into the Christmas spirit. This spirit, and the fun that each student has creating it, is the reason why many of these students still paint despite the weather.
In past years students have painted in the cold, with many of them unable to feel their brushes through their gloves. This year, the students raced the rainstorm Nov. 5 to get their Christmas scenes painted. The storm cut short the painting efforts of many, and even wiped some windows clean of their paintings. However, the art honor society members were determined, and repainted or finished painting Nov. 6.
Ashley Browning is a senior at Jennings County High School.
