Most of us have a love-hate relationship with winter break. It is a time to decompress after finals, but also the longest and what feels like most boring four weeks of our lives. There are many ups and downs that one will experience whilst back at home for a month so here are a few phases that we are all bound to experience over this winter break.
1. Complete and total exhaustion:
During this phase, you spend the majority of your time sleeping in your bed and the rest of your time falling asleep in front of the TV on your couch. After an exhausting semester and an even more exhausting finals week, you deserve to treat yourself to some much needed rest and relaxation. So, you find yourself averaging upwards of twelve hours a night on top of your extensive napping schedule. Your parents will be popping their heads into your room to make sure you are still alive for a solid week.
2. Friends:
After you have caught up on your sleep and finally decided to change out of your groutfits, you are beyond excited to see all of your friends. It has been way too long since you have last seen them. You will fill each other in on your lives, exchange crazy stories and most likely find yourself back on the couch watching Netflix, but you will feel less guilty about not doing anything with your day because at least now you aren't alone doing nothing all day long.
3. Family Time:
You will inevitably be spending a lot of time with your family seeing that it is the holidays. At first, this will be nice and relaxing. You are happy to be home and see your relatives that you haven’t seen since the last holiday. Then, eventually, all of their pressing questions about what you are going to do after graduation and your love life become too much. Family time is no longer so relaxing, and you find yourself sneaking off to avoid any further questioning until you see them again next Christmas.
4. Watching every single show on Netflix:
This phase is very similar to when you slept in your bed all day long, except this time you are awake in your bed and enthralled in whatever show you have chosen to binge watch. Whether it be The Office or all 12 seasons of Grey's Anatomy, you always chuckle to yourself when Netflix pauses your show to ask "are you still watching?".
5. Boredom:
Although being home has its perks, you begin growing restless to get back to school. You have found that there are only so many episodes on Netflix that you can watch before you are in desperate need of human interaction. Your hometown doesn't have nearly as much to do as school does, and you are beginning to miss your friends. Your constant communication with them through your GroupMe is the only thing keeping you sane. You are feeling defeated by the amount of time that stands between you and being reunited with them.
6. New Year, New Me:
You are excited about the potential that the new year holds. You will be feeling oddly motivated to get your life together, go to the gym more often and read that book you have been talking about reading for a year now. You swear to yourself that this time you are going to hold yourself to your New Years resolution. This phase does not last long, so capitalize on it and make the most of it while you still can.
7. Overwhelming excitement to go back:
You have run out of shows to watch on Netflix, you can't take anymore pressing questions from your family and the majority of your home friends are headed back to school anyways. There are only a few more days left of winter break and you couldn't be more excited to be headed back to school. You cherish the last couple of nights that you get to spend in your bed and have one last hurrah with your friends, but it is no secret that you are absolutely DYING to get out of there. Winter break has been real, but it is time to head back to where you truly belong.
