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Shopping for your family and friends can be expensive. So why not make something small and cute while not emptying your bank account?
1. Candy filled ornaments or jars
Buy some clear ornaments and fill them with any kind of candy you want. You can even mix it up and throw in some hot cocoa and mini marshmallows.
2. Homemade cookies or fudge
Who doesn't like cookies? I mean, honestly?
3. Slipper Stuffers
Buy a cute pair of slippers, some nail polish, and maybe a few chocolates and chapsticks to complete this holiday gift.
4. Mason jar snow globes
This gift is cute and super simple to put together! All you need is some glue, some glitter, a little tree, and a glue gun!. Here's a great step by step on how to make one.
5. Handmade soaps and bath bombs
Photo by Herbs Basics on UnsplashMaking a bath bomb is like baking cookies, and isn't as hard as you would think! Here are some easy bath bomb recipes if you want to get your friends or family a soapy gift!
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Student Life
The Post Thanksgiving Panic And Anxiety
It happens to all of us, the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas the catch up with you.
10h
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Thanksgiving Break is most likely everyone’s favorite break during the fall semester. You get to go home and reminisce with all your high school friends. That diet you’ve been on for the past month goes out the window, and you get to eat until you put yourself into a food coma. There’s no rush on homework and you can just lie in bed and Netflix to your heart’s content. To me that sounds like an ideally wonderful break, and totally stress-free.
Little do we realize the moment we get back to school, life is not stress-free anymore. The anxiety and work all start to pile up along with the books on your desk. These two weeks are the homestretch: the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
1. Finals are in less than two weeks. Yes, that’s right. Less than two weeks.
This is not the time to panic, this when you start to soak in the rest of the semester and run with it.
2. The pressure of learning while starting to study for your final exams starts to get to you.
You start to realize that 24 hours in a day just may not be enough
3. Right when you get back, you’ll make a list of all your assignments, and the low key anxiety starts to settle in.
4. You try to have a social life, but you then realize how much work you actually have.
With school, sleep, working out, and trying to throw a social life in with finals right around the corner, it’s time to pick a few because all four may not be possible.
5. You start to look over your syllabi and start to question if you even retained any information from the semester?
It happens to the best of us. Looking back through your notes, it's almost as if everything that was taught back in September feels like years ago.
6. You end up giving yourself a daily pep-talk telling yourself you can do it.
It's the little pep-talks we give ourselves that become the most important part of the home stretch. Your trip home for Christmas is right around the corner, and you just need to make it through two weeks of countless sleepless nights and days with excessive amounts of caffeine to keep you from falling asleep in the library.
Just remember, You can do it. And we're all in this together.
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Entertainment
5 reasons we love fictional characters more than real people
We all have that one character who is honestly our best friend.
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Even Shonda Rhimes, winning creator and executive producer of the hit TV shows Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, and The Catch agrees that relationships with fictional characters are real. In her book, The Year of Yes she states, "I have spent more time with Meredith and Christina then many of my actual friends...When you watched TV, even spending a full hour with Christina once a week, you were likely spending more time with her then you spent with most people in your life. That relationship was real."
1. They are always there
No matter what show you watch, you can always rely on the TV show and characters to all be there when you expect it. Whether you watch a Netflix show and it is just a click away or if you can always depend on Shonda Rimes "TGIT" to see your favorite characters. For me, I always know Grey's Anatomy will be on Thursday nights on ABC, but can we rely on real people to be that predictable? Sometimes when you expect someone to be there for you, they aren't. At the time you need them the most, the time you expect them to be there. Maybe they bailed last minute and for that reason, you can never trust them or rely on them the same way you
2. They are never fake
Every character is written by a TV screenwriter with a set personality in mind. Characters may grow and change throughout a season or a series, but they are never fake. Sitting on the other side of the screen you know everything about their lives and their personalities and even if they are keeping secrets to other characters in the show, the viewer always knows what is going on. You know Peyton Sawyer is always going to be the strongest character on One Tree Hill. You know Blair Waldorf is always going to love Chuck Bass. You know Michael Scott will never fail to make you laugh. The consistency of your favorite characters allows you to love them and feel a connection to them more than real people.
3. They open up and let us in
Like I said before, you always know what you're getting from a character. As the viewer, you know all their secrets. When you know everything about them, you are able to see how vulnerable they are. Their vulnerability helps us feel connected to them. You always know how they are feeling, you watch them cry alone at night and you feel as though you are there for them and you understand how they are feeling. Real people aren't always as willing to open up. You may be best friends with someone for years but you never really know what is going on in their life. It is hard getting close to someone if they won't let you in, unlike fictional characters.
4. They are strong
Some TV characters are the strongest people you will ever "meet". They can teach you a lot and can help you through various situations in your life. Most of them have been through hell and back and have made it out somehow. They have crazy pasts that make us all feel like it is okay to not be perfect. The optimism they hold and portray throughout the show is what gives us hope and inspires our own lives. All of us wish we could have the strength they have, so watching them shows us what is possible.
5. They love hard
There are a lot of relationships throughout everyone's favorite TV shows and if you are anything like me you love cute couples. Seeing your favorite couples go through the ups and downs of their relationships gives you hope for your own. There are so many 'relationship goals' couples on our favorite shows we can't help but want relationships like theirs because they love so hard. Sometimes they can even help you through your own relationship problems better than any real person could because somehow they're going through the exact same thing.
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Lifestyle
13 Ways To Become More Festive
How to make the holidays more merry and bright!
29 November
1939
Pinterest
Why hello there December! It seems like we just had a holiday season, but here we are a year later starting a new one with our stomachs full and hearts overflowing with thankfulness. If you're anything like me and didn't realize just how close the holiday season was approaching, we need to perk our spirits up for the most wonderful time of the year! Fortunately you have someone on the nice list like myself who can help you out with tips and tricks to become more bright eyed and bushy tailed about this holiday season.
1. Have a Christmas music jam out session.
Let's face it, we've all attempted to hit Mariah Carey's high note in "All I Want for Christmas is You."
2. Dig out the tacky Christmas sweaters.
What's more festive than your DIY Christmas tree sweater?
*silence*
That's what I thought.
3. Decorate a little bit!
Put up your Christmas tree, wrap your door like a present (don't forget the bow!), or hang Christmas lights in your room. Make your space feel like a winter wonderland!
4. Look up the 25 Days of Christmas movie schedule
Because you can't miss Buddy the Elf saying SANTAAAAA or the hot chocolate song on Polar Express. You just can't.
5. Go out and see Christmas lights
Some of the things you see when you go out on a Christmas light drive are just spectacular. There's at least one video a year of some of the best light shows. If not, watch Deck the Halls (refer to #4 to find out when it's on).
6. Do a crafty Christmas project
Whether it's a DIY Christmas wreath, a coat hanger Santa, or a ginger bread house, Christmas crafts aren't too costly and can be very fun!
7. Go Christmas shopping
What's more exciting than buying presents for the ones you love besides their facial expression when they open a gift from you?
8. Read Christmas stories
'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house...
9. Go caroling
Gather a group of your friends and put smiles on people's faces by singing "Joy to the World" right at their doors (or be like this lady and bump people for being off pitch..)!
10. Make Christmas shaped cookies
And decorate them too! The bonus is that you get to eat your creations!
11. Drink hot chocolate while reminiscing on Christmas memories with your family.
Nothing is more classic than your Grandma's memory of you being more obsessed with the gift box than the actual toy that was in it (thank you for the doll by the way, Grandma).
12. Play reindeer games
This will bring out the best competitions within your family, as well as determine whether people should really be on the naughty list instead of the nice list!!
13. Spend as much time with your family as you can.
Live out family traditions, create new ones, and laugh together. You never know what the future holds.
There you have it. Those are just 13 of the many ways you can have a holly jolly Christmas this year! I wish you a fa la la fantastic holiday season!
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Twist Photography
Going to the gym and working out on a daily basis (with breaks once in awhile) has been a great way for me to feel good about myself. It is 100% more than just looking good. Especially after starting college and having the stress and anxiety of tests, assignments, and just figuring out my future, the gym at my school has definitely been a place of relief for me and I have numerous reasons of why everyone should push themselves to get to the gym when they can.
1. Just another place to study
This sounds completely dangerous, but really if you're doing any cardio that doesn't require holding on, you can definitely take a notebook with you to study. When I first saw it, I thought it was crazy, but when you need to take every minute of every day to study anatomy, you'll definitely want to try reading some notes on the treadmill or something.
2. Relief of stress
DEFINITELY the main reason I go to the gym. Nothing is better than getting all your anger out and somehow miraculously running a six minute mile. After going to classes, getting a good workout in helps clear your mind.
3. Feeling better about yourself
Of course after several gym trips, you may be able to see a physical difference in your body, but aside from that, you also feel a sense of accomplishment. That plus the endorphins that are released, just make you feel so much better about yourself. You're making yourself stronger physically as well as mentally.
4. FREE
In my time of visiting of colleges in high school, I have never been to a school that did not have a free gym included with your tuition. Take advantage of that. You're in college, so you're going to love free stuff. Appreciate it now because after these 4 years of college, you'll either start paying for a membership or doing at home workouts.
5. Get motivated
Starting homework after not being productive all day is very rough. After a good workout though, you will feel motivated and productive and it will be easier to push yourself to get your work done. A body in motion stays in motion and one at rest will stay at rest, so after binge watching Netflix all day, you probably won't feel like starting your work.
Whether you're doing it for your physical or mental health, it is definitely a great idea to get to the gym when you can. College is a great opportunity to create a balance of laziness and productiveness. Force your friends to go with you and you can all look and feel better in every way possible!
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