Stress is so last season -

So let's make it stay that way. Stress is also incredibly overrated and sometimes the holidays just bring out the plain worst in people (even us too). So what's the magic remedy you say? It can be as simple as you simply giving 0 cares this holiday season.

This season will be the first in years that I won't be running around my house with disheveled hair and flour caked clothing. It will also be the first that my family and I will be spending it minus our team captain, dubbed, "Mom." So in light of the sucky but very real realization that holidays will never be the same, I decided to find a bright side in this terrain we call life.

First off, in all reality, if we are really being honest with each other here, the holidays, or at least prepping for them, really does suck. If you're like me you were carting the vacuum from room to room just hours before the guests arrived and you have yet to breathe, shower, and comb your hair (most days I still struggle to do all three but that's beside the point). Before the rest of the family has promptly arrived for a feast fit for kings you have probably threatened the lives of your immediate family at least half a dozen times and you are praying that no one makes a snide remark about your latest piercing because mom told you to be on your best behavior. Ugh.

Secondly, sometimes once a year can be entirely too often to see some relatives. I'm not speaking from experience necessarily but I am speaking from hearsay. Seriously, can I get a raise of hands who just looks forward to being humiliated during the holiday season? The snide remarks seem to go around faster than the presents at Chinese gift exchanges. Nothing puts a cherry on the top of your mental demise like the mental prodding about how your current life situation does not stack up with theirs, so why even invite all the fuss in?

Thirdly, if you're in college like me, these breaks from the turmoil called courses is blissful and rare so please let us just be. Let us sit across from the table with you, cranberry sauce and stuffing poised for a direct entry into our salivating mouths, in peace. Let us amuse, mostly ourselves, in pretending that our lives aren't marred with poor nutritional choices and a never ending array of leggings. Let us tell you about that one exam we totally aced...even if it was from two semesters back...really is it lying if it really did happen at one point?

Really what I'm getting at is why go through all the trouble? Let the house be a mess, or if you are on the guest side, don't remark on how the washboards have pizza sauce sprayed on them. Like literally Susan when was the last time you dusted the top of your cabinets? *Eye roll*

You don't have to talk to every relative in the room. Do what I do and chill with the kids of the group, they'll happily divulge all their Elementary crushes to you and any harsh remarks they make about you and your lack of appearance will be quickly forgotten when you tell them about the cookies and cupcakes upstairs.

Also, be damn proud of the disfunctional, yet still enrolled college student you are, many aren't even at this pivotal point in life, so celebrate the fact you haven't got kicked out yet. For real. Celebrate the small victories in life. There are so many downright awesome things about you many of your relatives will never even realize (maybe this is for the better). Hey, like for instance, I found out I can go four days without washing my hair in Greece last semester. You weigh the options; greasy hair or Greece. Yup. No competition here.

So really, wear what you want this holiday season, be who you want, and please don't give a darn what anyone says to you on these holiday excursions because they only get to see a fraction of the kick-butt life you live.