Holiday time for me starts the minute I throw my door open and luggage down after my flight back from Turkey Day. I would like to make a disclaimer first. This blog will deal heavily with Christmas, because I personally celebrate Christmas. The great thing about Yale is that even if you celebrate one holiday, you still get to experience different holidays, like the delicious latkes next Tuesday from Yale Hillel. The worst thing about holiday time at Yale is that you are only back for two weeks between breaks. This condenses the revelry and holiday cheer into a short time.
Two of eight of the boxes I am allowed to store at college are filled with Christmas decorations. This includes two trees, eight strands of lights, two advent calendars, wall and door hangings and boxes of ornaments. It's a lot of trouble at the end of the year, but so worthwhile when I open the box in December. The decorations are not only for my room, but for a hopeful takeover of the hallway and maybe the Stiles courtyard.
My trees are cute and all, but the tallest one measures in at a measly two feet. For a hardened Christmas veteran, there is something really special about a tall tree. For the past two years, a small group of Stilesians have gone to a nearby Christmas tree farm and dragged an eight foot tall tree up four flights of stairs. It is decorated beautifully for a month or so and then with no other option, tossed magnificently from the window (we checked for passerbyers below).
Our residential colleges pull out all the stops for decorating and holiday spirit. A visit to a dining hall reveal twinkling lights, decorated trees, bows and baubles. At some point Trumbull College will offer gingerbread house decorating or Branford will have a station for Christmas Cookie decorations. The Saturday before reading week will be the annual holiday dinner, where the dining halls will offer special dinners and the freshmen will go to the Feast of Comestibles in Commons. This is a parade of delicious food sculptures, desserts and even buckets of freshly cooked lobsters. It was one of the most over-whelming feasts I have ever encountered my freshman year.
The reason I keep checking for snow is that the first major snowfall of the year means a giant snow fight on Old Campus. With everyone divided into residential colleges, the competition can get really fierce. Snow forts pop up and trash cans are filled with snowballs ready for battle. This snow fight can last the entire day. People are either in the frosty spree or cowering in their rooms apprehensive of emerging into the melee.
I am going to take in Christmas in New York over reading week. A group of my friends and I are going to hop on a train and walk around Fifth Avenue, Central Park and other Christmas-saturated venues like we do every year. It's a fun difference from time at Yale and New York is magical in the winter. I feel that it can be a cliche that I explore the same places every year, but how can you avoid ice skating at Rockefeller Center or the windows at Henri Bendel's?
Although it is finals times and I have so much work to do, it's a tough struggle of choice between holiday time and everything I have to accomplish. My plan is to stay focused on my goals but still take time to help at a soup kitchen, stick out my tongue for snowflakes and hug my friends in an ugly Christmas sweater. I wouldn't miss this time of year, even with the stress, for anything.
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