Categories Displayed As List Problem..(I'm close though)

Hello.

I’m new to the WordPress platform and also new to OOP. Right now I’m trying to get the category titles to display as

• items on my sidebar.php.

The code I have so far is:

<div id="primary" class="widget-area" role="complementary">

			<ul class="xoxo">

 <?php while ( the_category() ) : $category_list = wp_list_categories('orderby=slug'); ?>

		<?php foreach ($category_list as $category) { ?>

        	<li><?php $category ?></li>

        <?php } ?>

 <?php endwhile; ?>

            </ul>

		</div><!-- #primary .widget-area -->

Something’s clicking because it displays the “Uncategorized” category, but that’s all. It’s like it forgot about the rest of the categories.
Here’s a link: https://www.sociallyaffluent.com/wordpress_environment/

Any suggestions?