Think back to your Christmases as a child. Remember the holiday season. How your mom used to make grasshopper pie seemingly every week. When it snowed, you and your brothers would think two completely different things: you’d build a snowman and they’d play tackle football. On a Saturday night in mid-December, everyone would hop in the car just go look at the Christmas lights around town. The tree lighting ceremony in the village. How the boy’s track team would spend hours decorating the bleachers around the track with Christmas lights.
These things were what made the holiday season so magical. Every family has their own types of traditions. We do the same thing year after year, no matter how silly it might be, because repetition brings familiarity and familiarity brings the comfort that is associated with the Christmas season. When you take away these traditions, you take away the sense of familiarity, and—you guessed it—you take away a lot of that happy holiday comfort.
This is only half the reason that the holidays are often not so cheery for college students. The other 50%, of course, is the stress of finals. Now, I could go on and on about how ridiculous the timing of the school year is for planning to have the holiday season crash head on with finals. But that’s not so jolly and merry, now is it? And that’s certainly not a very fun article to read, on your behalf.
I’d be lying if I told you that I was the master of dealing with change because I am so absolutely not. I flipped out the year that “Elf on a Shelf” was introduced to the holiday season because, as an early 2000’s millennial, Elf on the Shelf was simply just never part of the Christmas equation. But each year that I see my younger cousins jump up and down with excitement as their Elves make their first appearances, I can’t help but fall in love with it too, even if it does seem a little silly. Something that I once hated now brings me some feeling of comfort. Because it's a tradition. A new tradition.
I’ve learned that change is both A- always inevitable and B- sometimes good. So it’s best to accept change with an open mind. Especially you, my fellow college students who are locked away in your dorm rooms, watching the holiday season pass by beyond your piles of textbooks, flashcards, and essay drafts. Study and work hard on your finals, but don’t let them bog you down. Because an extra point or two on a test just isn’t as special as a new holiday memory or tradition.
Though it’s not easy to get entirely into the Christmas spirit when you have 5 essays to write (like I do... help!), I hope you find some time this holiday season to make new traditions. Whether you get a tiny tree for your itty bitty dorm or just a candle that smells like fresh balsam, I hope you make the most of this holiday season and all the joy that Christmas has to offer.
