My winter break at college was about a month long and I still have about eight days left. Being home for this long was pretty strange when I was so used to living at college. I never thought about how weird it would be to have to adapt to my home environment again; a place I was so used to being for the first seventeen years of my life. Seeing my family every day rather than my friends and roommates was definitely different.
There's also a lot that you take for granted when living at home that you definitely do not when you return from college: like having a shower you don't need to wear flip flops in, a comfortable bed in a room that doesn't have other people sleeping in it, home cooked meals, and no responsibilities. All of these things you don't think much about when you're living at home, but when you're suddenly not living at home these are the things you look forward to the most.
Despite how wonderful being home is, you miss college a lot more than you would expect. All of my friends are at least an hour away and it's strange not seeing them every day. Just as strange as it was to not see my parents every day when I first got to college. You no longer have to wake up in a dorm room and walk to get breakfast, but you do miss having breakfast with hundreds of other people.
Winter break when you were in high school meant getting out of school a couple days before Christmas and returning a couple days after New Year's. That felt really long when you were in high school, but now you have a month at home when you're in college and you don't even know what to do with it. Celebrating holidays meant getting cool presents, but now you're more excited to see family you haven't seen in months. Winter break when you're in high school meant having more time to hang out with your friends, but now you're hanging out with friends you haven't seen since August or missing friends that live in other states.
When you were in high school the end of winter break just meant going back to dreaded school, but now the end of winter break means packing up all of your stuff and driving or flying back to what has quickly become your home away from home. Not to mention once you go back to college you'll be in completely different classes in a completely new semester. All new professors, all new topics, and all new people to meet. Winter break is one of the most exciting and looked forward to times when you're in college. But this break also ends up being bittersweet because you do end up missing a place you've grown to love so much.
