Holidays

friends
Culture

We’re so excited that one of our favorite holidays is just around the corner. While delicious food is a major perk of Thanksgiving, it is also a great time to remember what you are grateful for. We’ve talked about ways to show your gratitude throughout the year, Spotlighted a guy who started a company that encourages sending thank you cards, the power of random acts of kindness, and have offered tips on different ways to say thank you.

Thanksgiving is a time to count your lucky stars, appreciate your family, and give back to those you love. It is also a perfect time to share with friends and show how much you care about one another. A fantastic way to do this is by hosting a Friendsgiving! Friendsgiving is the celebration of Thanksgiving dinner with your friends, and it usually happens the Wednesday before or the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Whether you plan a Friendsgiving a couple of days before Thanksgiving or if it replaces actual Thanksgiving (since you might not be able to make it home for the holiday), there’s no better way to spend time with friends.

These are the 6 benefits of hosting a Friendsgiving:

  1. Experiment with new recipes.

Have you been waiting for the perfect event to make those mini pumpkin pies? Here it is, your perfect moment has arrived. Since you’ll be cooking or baking for a crowd, you can try multiple recipes and show off those kitchen skills.

  1. Experience different traditions.

Encourage those attending to incorporate their family traditions – does your best friend play football with his family before the feasting begins (hello Friends!)?, does your other friend watch football on TV afterwards? Is there a movie that one of your friends watches every Thanksgiving? Does someone love playing board games post-meal? Perhaps your family goes around the table before eating to say what they are grateful for?

Include these fun and new traditions into your Friendsgiving. By kicking off Friendsgiving, you and your friends will be starting a tradition of your very own.

  1. Try your friends’ favorite foods.

Make your Friendsgiving a potluck and tell everyone to bring their favorite dish (you’ll want to coordinate this so you don’t have four types of mashed potatoes). Through the variety of foods, you will experience the different flavors that your friends have enjoyed and celebrated over the years.

  1. You’ll get two days to focus on being thankful!

While being grateful every day of the year is important, this year you’ll get two days to focus on what you are thankful for – Friendsgiving and Thanksgiving. Lucky you!

  1. Start celebrating Christmas early without judgment.

So you and your friends want to start listening to Christmas music without being judged for it? This is the safest environment to do it in! Blast those Christmas carols and holiday tunes and make a dance party out of it. Who better to rock out to Jingle Bells with than your best friends who love the holidays just as much as you?

  1. Cleaning has never been faster.

Once the meal is over, there are multiple hands to make the clean-up process move much faster. For a stress-free post-meal experience, clean before you eat dessert. This way there won’t be that huge task looming over you. The job gets done sooner when everyone helps out.

Happy Friendsgiving!

Image: Friends Season 10

budget xmas
Skills

Now that finals are coming to an end, you finally have time to start enjoying the holiday season. You can think about gifts and decorating now that you have a break from all of your schoolwork. As you add people to your gift list and think of ideas for Christmas Eve or New Years Eve, the cost of gifts and celebration plans may start quickly rising. If you are trying to avoid an expensive holiday season, there are many ways you can celebrate on a budget. Don’t let the holidays put you in debt or stress you out in the new year. You can save a bunch of money while having a great time!

1. Determine your budget.
The very first thing you’ll want to do is set a limit on how much you want to spend. You can do this in terms of the total amount you will spend, or based on how much you want to spend per person. Keep in mind, you do not need to buy gifts for every single friend or family member. A heartfelt card is more than enough for those you don’t necessarily want to buy presents for.

Let’s say you set a budget of $75-100 for presents and holiday events. You now have a number to work with, which enables you to allocate your funds appropriately to each person and event on your list. Write down everyone’s names and jot down ideas for gifts, along with a ballpark cost. Having all of the names and costs will help you visualize whether you will be able to stay within budget. If it looks like you are going over budget, adjust your gift ideas or think of something else to give (see below).

2. DIY gifts.
If you’ve ever been on Pinterest, you’ll know that we are becoming a very do-it-yourself world. DIY gifts are not only an inexpensive way to show someone you care, but these types of gifts are often very thoughtful because they take time to make.

DIY gift ideas:

*Knit a scarf
*Make a set of greeting cards to give as a bundle
*Bake cookies
*Write a poem
*Make a picture frame and frame a special photo
*Create a scrapbook of memories
*Make soap or candles
*Make a homemade snowglobe
*Design cork coasters
*Paint wooden utensils
*Make a homemade card with a special handwritten note

3. Experience gifts.
Instead of purchasing or making a gift for someone, take him or her out for an experience gift. Sometimes there’s no better gift than time, and by treating someone to a fun afternoon is a very special present. You may have to pay for tickets or food, but this can be done on a low budget.

Experience gift ideas:
*Take someone out to lunch or to see a movie
*Visit the zoo
*Spend the day at an amusement park
*Walk around your local botanical gardens
*Go ice skating
*Hike in the morning and watch the sunrise
*Bake a cake or cook a meal together

4. Coupon gifts.
If you aren’t interested in purchasing, DIY, or experience gifts, giving coupons might be a unique twist on your usual holiday presents. Many people love favors, and giving a little book of coupons to your Mom, Dad, siblings, or friends will not go unappreciated. All you’ll need is a piece of paper, a pen, scissors, and a stapler. Of course, you can make your coupon book look fancier, but this is a quick, easy, and cheap way to offer something nice to someone. Get creative!

Coupon gift ideas:

*Wash the car, inside and out
*Clean a room for someone
*Pick up the groceries
*Cook dinner
*Wash and fold laundry
*Making the bed every day for a week
*Favor of your choice

5. Limit gifts and spending total.
Before you and your friends or family buy presents for each other, have a discussion about how many presents you will get for one another or about how much you want to spend. 1 present and 1 stocking stuffer is typically a good limit for family, whereas friends can differ based on who you are buying presents for. By being transparent about your budget and limit, you and your family and friends can unload that stress and just concentrate on finding the perfect gift.

6. Make dinner and rent a movie.
When it comes time for the actual celebrations, there is no need to buy a new dress, suit, or shoes to attend a festive party. There are inexpensive (and fun!) ways to spend Christmas Eve or New Years Eve, such as making a home cooked meal and renting a movie. You can even just order pizza and watch a Christmas special. The time spent together with people you like being around is all you really need for the holidays.

7. Host a cookie decorating party.
What better way to get in the holiday spirit than to decorate (and eat) cookies? Spend your days off icing cookies with family and friends. The time will fly when you are rolling dough, listening to holiday tunes, and icing cookies with every color of the rainbow.

8. Volunteer.
Give the gift of time! Volunteer at your local food bank or animal shelter, or make blankets and collect toys. The options are endless and it may just be the best gift you give all season.

9. Secret Santa.
When you and your family or friends decide to do Secret Santa, your costs are seriously cut since you only have to buy one present! Set a maximum limit so that everyone stays within that price range. Get a group of people together, draw names from a (Santa) hat, don’t tell anyone whose name you have, and then purchase a special present that will be exchanged later. It’s so much fun to surprise someone with a funny, novelty gift.

study 1
EducationSkills

With the holiday break so close, studying for finals may not be the most exciting thing on your to-do list. However, exam week is critical and because of its importance, it can cause major stress. For us during finals week - as much as procrastination tried to distract us - starting to study early was super helpful. That way, when our finals test date crept up, we didn’t need to cram all night and we had a little more confidence. As painful as finals week is, you have the power to take control. There are many little useful tricks to help you study - hopefully one of these works for you!

Create a plan.
Before you dive in to your mounds of paperwork, old tests, and study guides, create a clear guideline for the most important topics you’ll need to know for each test. This way, when you spend hours studying, you will be studying the material that will be most useful. Also, set aside hours of your day for studying for each class/test instead of just studying when you feel like it. When you have a clear plan, you’re more likely to follow it.

Take 5-10 minute breaks.
For every 55-60 minutes that you study, take a 5-10 minute study break. Whether you are transitioning between topics or just need to clear your head for a bit, do something completely different to take your mind off of what you spent the last hour reading and practicing. Don’t be fooled, break time is not wasted time.

Designate a study area for a certain period of time, then change it up.
Spend the morning studying history at the library, and then move to a cafe to study English in the afternoon. When you’re back in your dorm or at home that evening, round out your day by practicing math equations at your desk. If you sit in one place all day long, you’ll start to get distracted and bored. Everything will feel like it is blending together. Switch up your environment for a change of scenery and for the walking breaks.

Start studying early.
As hard as it is to avoid procrastination, starting to study early is the best thing you can do for yourself. Since it is no surprise as to when finals are in the year, you can plan out your study days accordingly. Try to give yourself at least one month to study before finals week. During your first week of studying, you won’t necessarily need to buckle down and study as hard as you will in the third and fourth week. Use the first couple of weeks to review all of the material, start from the beginning, and refresh your memory.

Find a focus point.
Designate something to be your source of comfort. For instance, a favorite family photo, your childhood teddy bear, a soft tennis ball to squeeze, or a funny comic strip. Then, when you get anxious or nervous before your test, pull out your little object to bring some laughter, happiness, and focus back into your mind.

Walk/Jog/Dance.
Get those endorphins going! Cardio is good for your memory and health, and a quick dance break might be just what you need to remember a tricky equation or definition.

Laugh. A lot.
Just as you need your cardio break, you also need to laugh! Laughing relives tension and stress, so don’t be shy. Laugh away. Watch a hilarious video your friend sent you, listen to your favorite comedian, or crack a couple of silly jokes with friends.

Talk to your professor.
If you start studying early, you can create a list of questions you may have to ask your teacher. Swing by his or her office hours and discuss anything you might find confusing. Also, be sure to ask in class or during office hours what exactly will be on the test. Your teacher might not be willing to share that information, but it never hurts to ask. When you start early and arrive prepared, you will be more confident come test day.

Memory aids.
Maybe writing equations or definitions down on flash cards will help you remember them. Maybe acting out a Shakespeare scene will help you better understand the themes and major plot points. Turning the capitals of countries you need to memorize into a song or poem will definitely spark a reminder during the test. Do what works for you and be creative!

Study with friends/classmates.
But only if it makes sense for you. You want to study with people who are motivated to learn the material and who have been paying attention in class. Everyone should equally contribute to the conversation or that time spent with a group is just not worth it. If you find a good group to work with, divide up the material between your peers and have everyone come to the study sessions with their sections filled-in with useful information. When the group can help each other and maximize time and be efficient, it is a win-win for everyone involved.

Avoid the dreaded all-nighter.
It might sound tempting to stay up all night before the test to cram that last bit of information. However, if you stay up all night, you’ll be exhausted for your exam the next morning. What you study last-minute the night before will have little impact on your overall knowledge of the content, so it’s better to get eight hours of sleep so you feel refreshed, quick, and comfortable.

Enjoy healthy snacks.
Want to munch on something while you study? Snack on carrots, apples and peanut butter, popcorn, and almonds. Avoid sugary sodas, energy drinks, and too much caffeine, as that will just give you a sugar crash that you did not need.

Breathe.
When you feel your heart starting to race when you’re studying from the anxiety about test day, put everything down and just breathe. You’ve taken tests before, you’ve done the work all quarter/semester, and you’ve read the material. Breathe deeply for a count of 10 seconds, think about positive outcomes only, take a break if you need it, and then get back to work with a more relaxed attitude.

Good luck with your finals! You got this!

CultureSkills

‘Tis the season for Christmas music, holiday decorations, and…holiday cards? Each holiday season, you might give your friends little gifts and cards, and your family might send out cards to family around the globe. In addition to sending holiday cards to just family and friends, you may want to consider sending cards to previous internship supervisors, family friends who gave you advice, and mentors who sat down with you for coffee and informational interviews. Holiday cards can be short and sweet, and they are a nice gesture to show your network that you are thinking of them and to keep you in their minds. Before jumping into just sending off random holiday cards, we have compiled tips that we have learned over the years…

  1. Gather information: If you collected business cards from those you worked for or worked with, there is usually an address listed on the front. If you only have an email, you can simply send a message to the person who you want to send a card to asking for his or her mailing address. It is more convenient to have all of the necessary information before you start writing cards so that you can easily seal them up in the envelopes and send them off all at once.
  2. Send cards to your network: Send holiday notes to your old bosses, mentors, and people you have met before and admire. Just as you would email them every now and then with a ‘hello’ and update, holiday cards are a great way to stay in touch.
  3. What to write: You don’t need to write a novel. Simply (hand write!) a brief note wishing them a happy holiday season, a great new year, and perhaps one sentence about what you have been up to or a couple of sentences about a memory or important lesson learned from your experience together.
  4. Keep it ambiguous: If you aren’t sure whether your previous internship supervisor celebrates Christmas or Hanukkah, keep the message a little ambiguous by sticking to: “Happy holidays!” This way, you won’t offend anyone or make any assumptions. You can’t go wrong with wishing someone a ‘Happy holidays!’ or a “Happy New Year!’
  5. When to send: Since the holidays can be a crazy time to send letters and packages, it’s better to send your holiday cards earlier rather than later. Get your cards written, sealed, and stamped by the end of November or early December, and try to get them out by the end of the first week of December. This gives the cards plenty of time to make their way to their destination.
  6. Types of cards: The cards you send don’t need to be expensive. If you want to hand-make your holiday cards, that would be great! If you are looking to purchase nice cards, here are some good options: Papyrus / Tiny Prints / Shutterfly /Paper Source / Target / Barnes and Noble. If you get your cards in early/mid-November or at the end of Christmas from the year before, you can score some pretty sweet deals and save a couple of extra dollars.
  7. Plan ahead: For next Christmas, buy holiday cards from this year that are on-sale. That way you can save money and be prepared for next year’s round of holiday cards! Also, maintain a list of contacts with their addresses to make next year’s information gathering super easy.

Will you be writing holiday cards this holiday season?