Winter break comes at a perfect time in the semester when everything is overwhelming and stressful. You finish two weeks of agony during finals, and there's a light at the end of the tunnel: home. Going home for winter break comes with a rollercoaster of emotions and you find yourself going through different stages.
Stage 1: Running Home
Your last final just ended and your bags are already packed. It's time to grab your stuff and travel home for a couple of hours hoping not to deal with any airport delays.
Stage 2: Friends Arrive
Time to figure out when all of your friends get home, so you can drive over to their house and give them a squeeze.
Stage 3: Food, Food and More Food
The next few days are filled with food dates with your friends filling up on all the food that you missed while away at school. If you're from the east coast this means bagels everyday, pizza often and routine trips to the diner.
Stage 4: Hitting the Town
Everyone's back from school, and you all feel like it's time to get together and throw it back like you did in high school. It's nice to see everyone at first, and then a part of you remembers why you were so excited to leave for college in the first place.
Stage 5: The Boredom
You've been to the mall a couple times and ran out of food places to get excited about. Your friends seem busy doing their own things, which means you finally have the time to watch hours of Netflix each day, sleep for 14 hours each night, and take daily naps.
Stage 6: Thank God for New Year's
New Year's comes at the perfect time to break your streak of boredom and give you a reason to get out of bed. Dressing up for New Year's is half the fun, and an excuse to get all your friends together. Nobody wants to talk about college, and your not worried about going back to school yet.
Stage 7: The Scramble
All of a sudden you only have a few days left before you have to go back to school and you feel like you still have a thousand things to do. Packing to go back to school is so much harder than it was packing to come home because you have to make sure to bring back all your new gifts you got for the holidays and figure out how to squish them into your suitcase.
Stage 8: The Goodbyes
Just when you started getting used to life back at home, winter break has come to an end and it's time for everyone to head back to school. You make plans with your friends for visits over the next semester, and look forward to being back with them in May.
