A winter’s chill settles in, students are preparing to use the holiday break to reconnect with family and friends.

And those who celebrate Kwanzaa will also reconnect with ancestry and heritage.

Kwanzaa, which is observed from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1 every year, honors African heritage and culture. Each day of Kwanzaa represents a different value attributed to the holiday.

Each day is marked by lighting candles in a candle holder called a kinara.

Melanie Bratcher, an African and African-American Studies professor, said she celebrated Kwanzaa when she was in graduate school in Pennsylvania.

“We literally went through the seven day ritual, saying greetings, giving handmade gifts and books,” Bratcher said.

The Nguzo Saba are seven principles practiced during the holiday to strengthen community ties and individual qualities, according to officialkwanzaawebsite.org.

These principles are woven into the celebration along with several symbols based off of the Swahili celebration of the harvest. Gifts are exchanged and are often handmade and related to heritage.

The holiday was founded in 1966 by Dr. Maulana Karenga, who is currently a professor of Africana Studies at California State University, Long Beach.

Karenga created the celebration to preserve and promote African heritage.

Kwanzaa is a cultural holiday, not a religious one, which allows anyone of any religious background to have the opportunity to celebrate.

“Kwanzaa was created to help African Americans who have been separated from the consciousness of the culture,” Bratcher said. “It was a means to facilitate cultural identity and having some pride in that.”

The message behind this year’s holiday still reflects the spirit of its origins in the 1960s, Karenga stated on the Web site.

“Our task, then, even in this emerging era of great expectation, is as it has always been and remains: to know our past and honor it; to engage our present and improve it; and to imagine our future and forge it in the most effective, expansive and ethically grounded ways,” Karenga wrote in his annual founder’s message.

Bratcher said she hopes everyone can learn from Kwanzaa even though it is an African-American holiday.

“Even though it was created for African-American practice, I would encourage everyone to investigate the principles and how they can make us better world citizens,” Bratcher said.