By Eric Allen

This holiday season, students living on campus may have trouble finding ways to decorate their rooms that include more than festively displaying their names on the door.

Residential Life has many rules outlining the types of decorations students are allowed to use. The list of prohibited decorations, which can be found in “The Guide to Residence Hall Living” under Fire Safety Regulations, includes live Christmas trees, holiday lights, paper decorations and candles. The guide also disallows menorahs, so to accommodate Jewish students, candles for religious purposes are allowed in other areas of campus.

“[Students] can’t decorate, which sucks for the whole holiday spirit, but I can see where Residential Life is coming from,” Luvara said.

While these rules may narrow decoration possibilities, some students said they understand the reasoning in the limitations. Live Christmas trees have a high potential to catch fire and make for a tempting home for mice. Live trees can also take up a considerable amount of space in rooms, therefore possibly obstructing access to the door, violating fire codes.

Holiday lights use tiny bulbs that are capable of sparking a flame. Open flames (like candles in a menorah or a holiday scented candle) can start a fire if knocked over or left unattended.

But while most of the rules are due to fire safety, students said the rule limiting the use of paper decorations is unclear.

At first glance, “paper decorations” may conjure images of a ceiling covered with hanging paper snowflakes or paper garlands interwoven between furniture. But students said they feel the policy could include posters and pictures too.

“We can’t do anything else to decorate our rooms and make them our own. It would be one more rule people don’t really listen to,” said freshman international affairs major Sonja Luvara. “I could see how it’s a fire hazard, but really everything is to an extent.”

Despite any possible discrepancies in the clarity of ResLife’s rules about decorating, the policy on holiday decor are mostly concerned with fire hazards.

The restrictions also left some students wondering how they are supposed to decorate at all.

Instead of decorating rooms in residence halls at school, students might think about holding out until winter break to begin celebrating the season at home or maybe just settle for a festive background on their computer desktop.

But some students, like sophomore journalism major Kelly Wilder, said they can’t help but start decorating now at school.

“If it’s OK for them to put gas stoves in our kitchens, it seems silly that we can’t have a well-watered tree and a few lights up,” Wilder said.

Students who want to decorate while still on campus will have to abide by ResLife’s guidelines and still decorate the way they want to. Some suggestions include fake garland, wreaths or plastic trees.

“People could put up garland, beads, streamers