MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
The big day is finally here! I have now been up for 2 hours already and am so excited to get through the rest of the day. Anyone who’s been lucky enough to get an advent calendar that gives you a chocolate, or whatever type of advent you’ve been getting, today – I am very jealous. Today is the last in our song countdown and well done to any of you who managed to correctly guess what the UK voted as our favourite Christmas song of all time. In my mind, The Fairytale of New York is the perfect description of life – we slag each other off, complain, and just genuinely have those days when we want to turn into a loner and hide from the world. But then Christmas comes and we accept that we do really love each other anyway!
So I’ll go into all about my exciting presents in another post, but for today’s day 25 of Blogmas I thought I would share my tips and tricks for surviving today. This is the day that most students love and hate. We’re warm, well fed, surrounded by family, and there’s no question over who’s in charge of buying the next lot of toilet roll. However, we’re subjected to questions, we have to wake up at a normal time, we’re surrounded by family and still being in pyjamas at 6pm is generally frowned upon. There will be those certain questions we don’t want to be asked, things we don’t want to do, and very few hiding spots. Even worse when you’re expected to help out with the day! So how do I plan on surviving today?
For some reason, the older ones in the family often love to ask me when I plan on finding myself a boyfriend. Now, please trust me when I say I would love to tell them the full honest truth, however it would cause a lot of problems and this probably isn’t the right day to start explaining to my 85 year old granny that I am never going to find myself a boyfriend.
Another standard question is “How is university going?” Please be aware, this is more often than not just a casual question. Don’t go into how much you hate your course, are struggling with the workload, hate the flatmates, or any of that. A simple “Yeah, it’s good thanks! Just glad to be home for a change” will suffice. If they continue to question you then go for it and tell them everything!
“Have you put on or lost any weight?” Surely I’m not the only one who gets asked this? It drives me insane. I know they’re often asking because they’re worried, however I quickly learnt that the correct response to this is “Probably as much as you have”… instead, the safest option is “I have no idea, no scales at uni.” Then they can be left to decide for themselves.
After a few days in your family’s company, you may find yourself dying to be back in your cold student flat, on your own, listening to depressing music and eating ice cream from the tub. When these moments happen, take yourself to the bathroom for 5 minutes. Read some blog posts or tweets, take a deep breath, splash your wrists with some cool water (proven to help cool your skin and calm you down) and then rejoin the celebrations. Either that, or go wash some of the dishes in the kitchen! Not only do you get some time to yourself, but you also get praised and thanked for helping out.
The main thing to remember is that you’re only there for a few days. It can be hard, but remember just how excited your family are to see you again, and try and put on a brave face. Worst case scenario? You’ve ‘accidentally’ booked an earlier flight home than they were expecting!
Merry Christmas everybody. Have a lovely day, and may your day be filled with peace, joy, harmony, and lots of wine! Oh! And congratulations to 1weekmary who has won my giveaway!
Ktkinnes xxx
