No traffic jams around Kansas University. No crowded restaurants downtown.

It just doesn’t feel like graduation season. But it is.

“It’s not that fun graduating in December,” KU graduate Jonathan Cooley said. “It’s cold out. It’s the holidays. Not a lot of people care.”

More than 1,000 KU students will bid farewell to their college years this month. Their graduation experience is a bit different from those who depart in the spring.

The festive May celebration includes the symbolic march through the Campanile and down the hill into Memorial Stadium.

That long-standing tradition is difficult to mimic this time of year, KU spokesman Todd Cohen said.

“The tradition is to walk down the hill, not slip and slide down the hill,” Cohen said.

December graduates include students who are graduating early or late. Some also may have started during a nontraditional time, such as a summer semester rather than the fall.

For the December graduates, KU’s various schools have smaller, calmer ceremonies.

The School of Business and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences participate in ceremonies at the Lied Center. And the journalism, engineering and law schools have ceremonies at the Kansas Union. The law school’s ceremony is set for 3:30 p.m. today at the union.

Christopher Cooley, left, Overland Park, and his younger brother, Jonathan Cooley, Lawrence, are two of the more than 1,000 Kansas University students who will bid farewell to their college years this month. Their graduation experience is a bit different from those who depart in the spring and take the traditional walk down the hill.

December graduates have the option of participating in the May commencement.

Some opt for these festivities. Some may skip them all.

“I didn’t do the walking thing,” journalism graduate Stephen Godfrey said. “I never really like all the ceremonial congratulations.”

Graduate Jesse McGee donned a cap and gown for the recent College of Liberal Arts and Sciences ceremony. The fanfare was enough to make her happy, but she would have liked the chance to toss her cap in the air and shout the Rock Chalk Chant, she said.

“It was short and sweet but I just wish it had a little more oomph,” she said.

December graduates also depart for the working world during the holiday season.

David Gaston, director of the KU Career Center, said job searches can be difficult as recruiters and others take their vacations, but he said students shouldn’t wait until they graduate to think about where they’ll work.

“If they’ve waited until after they’ve finished classes to look for a job, they’re behind,” he said.

That’s not a problem for Godfrey, who started his career in his final semester of school, juggling work with the two courses he needed to graduate.

McGee, who plans to move to Denver, said the holidays may make it hard to get a short-term job. But she has an interview planned for next week and plans to move after the first of the year.

“It’s hard because everything has to fall into place at once,” she said.

Regardless of the timing, many winter graduates share in the happiness that one chapter is behind them and another is beginning.

Christopher Cooley returned to school to finish his degree. He graduates this season along with his younger brother, Jonathan Cooley.

“It’s more of a relief than anything else,” Christopher Cooley said.