At the time of year when many people are gearing up for the Christmas holiday, some ISU students are celebrating a much younger holiday — Kwanzaa.

A holiday recognizing African-American culture, Kwanzaa will be celebrated early at 2 p.m. Saturday at Fisher Theater.

ISU students will come together to celebrate the holiday through means of singing and performing. Andraya Parrish, sophomore in electrical engineering, and Eric Ashby, freshman in performing arts, said they are teaming up to sing “Lost Without You” in honor of Kwanzaa.

Both students said they are “very proud” to be performing this piece for the holiday.

“It is a really honorable thing,” Ashby said. “I did it last year, and I’m going to keep doing it in the future.”

Shirley Basfield Dunlap, director of the ISU Minority Theatre Workshop, said anyone in the area is encouraged to participate in the celebration.

“I haven’t turned anyone down that wants to participate,” said Dunlap, assistant professor of music.

Dunlap said it is important people for to know the meaning of Kwanzaa if they are thinking of participating. “It is quite an honor to be involved,” she said. “It’s not just some college talent show.”

Kwanzaa is a holiday from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1 that celebrates the African-American culture, Dunlap said. The holiday was started in 1966 by Maulana Karenga, chair of black studies at California State University in Long Beach, Calif.

“It’s a celebration in which family members come together like Thanksgiving, only for seven days,” she said.

The focus of the holiday is to reinforce a value system based on elements of African harvest festivals. “Kwanzaa means the first fruits of the harvest in Swahili,” Dunlap said.

The holiday is based on seven main principles that a person is to live by, she said. There is a Kinara, which holds seven candles. Three red are on one side, representing the bloodshed through slavery; on the opposite side are three green candles representing the harvest. In the middle is the seventh candle — a black candle representing the color of Africans.

Every day a family member is to light the black candle and, on alternating days, a red or a green candle, and then discuss one of the seven principles, Dunlap said.

“[Founder Maulana] Karenga helps us to understand how we incorporate the seven principles into our daily lives,” Dunlap said.

Parrish said the celebration is a good way to ensure living a life based on values, as well getting a chance to see family. “The week is a reminder of the way to live throughout the year,” she said. “That is just the week I recognize publicly the way I live my life with my family.”

Dunlap said a popular misconception of Kwanzaa is that it was formed to replace Christmas, but she said that is not why it was developed.

“It’s a culture holiday, not a religious holiday,” she said.

Dunlap said Kwanzaa is celebrated by groups of people other than African Americans and encourages members of other ethnicities to take part.