It’s sorority Christmas for spring new members.
Big/Little week is a week of spoiling new littles and preparing them to receive their bigs. What all goes into big/little week? A LOT.
Spring recruitment at TCU is not as big as formal recruitment in the fall. This means there are smaller amounts of potential new members going through recruitment and smaller new member classes. It is more relaxed than formal recruitment, but it still has the same goal: to get new members. Once the new member class is established, the real fun begins.
Spring is different because of the smaller new member classes. Actives will volunteer to take on a spring little. Big/Little week is the week that littles look forward to the most. Littles receive gift baskets of things that their big has made or bought. It's a week of spoiling.
It seems simple, but for the bigs, it can be a super stressful process. Some may think that it’s only about crafting and spoiling the little until she is drowned in presents. But this is false. There’s a lot more that takes place. Before big/little week, bigs will meet up with new members over a period of maybe 3 or 4 weeks. This is a great way to bond with the new members, but it is also a way to find a potential little. Bigs will probably click with a girl or two, but in the end, they have to decide which girl they would like to be their little. And likewise, the little will select a big.
The next step after finding out the little is crafting. Sorority girls are notorious for crafting. It’s how we spend our time over the summer or when we are bored, or even when we don’t want to do our homework. If there is a girl who is just not crafty, there will always be a girl within her sorority who can do the crafting for her. Canvases, letters, t-shirts, pin boxes, etc. are made and decorated to impress the littles. Hard work and money is put into these crafts, so we expect to see the littles post it on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and all other forms of social media to brag about how great her big is or how #obsessed she is.
Delivering the presents is probably the most stressful part of big/little week. It was super stressful for me. You want to be able to deliver the presents without being caught. A big can choose to have someone deliver it for them, but where is the fun in that? The knock and run is an option that most girls use. You do as it says: Knock and run. Other options involve getting guys to serenade the littles. It’s all up to the big to decide what’s best. It’s fun and it is like a secret mission, because you have to do everything without getting caught.
Finally, reveal is the magical day when the little discovers who her big is and which family she is a part of. There are so many ways to do reveal. A big can pop out of a box or wrap herself up in wrapping paper. No matter how they do it, in the end, the little will know who her big is and post social media updates about how #perfect she is.
