Most importantly, you’re only home for about a week—the perfect amount of time that lets you enjoy the luxuries of dependence without getting sick of the reasons you left home in the first place. You also get to reunite with the morons that make home so fun.
Here are some ways to enjoy this short week of nostalgia, lethargy, and vice:
Drink with the friends you haven’t seen since summer
I sat in my room on Monday night writing this listicle for you to read at your own leisure. My school’s academic calendar is draconian when it comes to non-secular holidays, so I was stuck at college until today while the majority of my hometown friends got home and commenced their weeklong binge without me. I’ve never been good at coping with FOMO. This week was no exception.
Once you come home for your first break freshman year and reunite with your core group of goons, each break gets more and more reckless. The weeks with your original crew show how astonishing our bodies are and how much they can endure. Regardless of what booze-fueled shenanigans you engage in, you do actually accomplish the important things like catching up and swapping dumb stories about all the tailgating and swashbuckling that went down this fall. You may now Google “swashbuckling.”
Revisit your favorite hometown restaurants
It’s a simple yet mildly tragic truth about the human condition—college students are addicted to fast food. It’s not necessarily a bad thing considering this will be the only era of our lives that’ll allow such a habit, but it’s also a tad depressing to a lot of people. Not to me, though. I indulge in this atrocious diet with a smile on my face and a searing sense of cynicism.
I know this holiday is about the homemade turkey, “feexins,” and assorted confections (more on that below), but everyone has a few favorite places you can only go to at home. This is because our schools have all the clichés—DP Dough, Jimmy John’s, Five Guys. Most mom-and-pop places just can’t survive in college towns due to all the wannabe conformist corporations. Sorry for the Goth kid moment.
Stuff your face with all that food full of love
As college students, we’re all very accustomed to certain things. We’re used to bathrooms covered in piss and hair. We’re used to Mickey Mouse occasionally sprinting across our kitchen floor in search of a better life. Essentially, we’re used to living in absolute squalor.
What we’re definitely not used to is opening a refrigerator filled with lunchmeat that isn’t expired and fruit that isn’t bluish green. Such is the luxury of our home kitchens that have a certified mother maintaining it 24/7. When we’re not wasting money on grease from our nearby staples, we’re eating a home cooked meal, the Holy Grail for college students who’ve lived an entire semester on (again) the clichés—Easy Mac, Nutella, nothing. It’s these generous portions and clean silverware that keep your world in orbit, which involve these people…
Kick it with the family
My mom stays at home, and after coming back from college I realized how incredibly awesome that is. When it comes down to it, she loves me a lot, even though she disagrees with my unhealthy habits and really fuckin’ hates that I write for BroBible. But I’m a mama’s boy, and that’s perfectly fine with me.
Everyone’s family is batshit crazy and mine is no exception. Not to get too into the sentimental holiday spirit but you have to recognize where you’ve come from. The only way to do that is to attempt enjoying your family’s company, even if they might be lousy self-minded pricks. That’s why you have to at least attempt it. If it proves too difficult, chalk it up to a misfire and bon voyage til Christmas.
Sleep in your own bed
Zombieland has a bunch of rules, the most important of which is rule #32: enjoy the little things. From that dude who gave you his last beer, to someone holding the door open for you, these little positives stick in the back of your mind and keep you from ending up in the psycho ward.
The greatest little thing home has to offer is the glorious comfort of your own mattress. Sprawling out on that thing half naked all day makes life so good you can taste it in your spit. An aristocratic change of pace compared to that shitty piece of cardboard you have at school. Plus your bed at home can turn into a theater for doing this…
Binge that TV show you haven’t had time for
Of course I’m not talking about real TV, like on a flatscreen or whatever. All the best TV is available online and the universe is a much better place for it. I just got HBO Go and it’s opened up an entire world of awesome 2000s television. My roommates watch at least three episodes of Entourage a day and I rolled through all five seasons of Six Feet Under in one week.
During the middle of the semester, most of us don’t have time to do absolutely nothing but binge a show we’ve been jonesing to watch all year. Use Thanksgiving break to your advantage by locking yourself in the darkest room of your house with some kind of online streaming account. Me this break? I can’t decide between The Wire or Game of Thrones. Maybe both if I’m feeling ambitious.
Savor being away from school
Because the few weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas is always the worst time of your young adult life. Between exams, papers, and projects, you’ll wanna blow your head off. Like Churchill said, if you are going through hell, keep going.
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[Homemade Thanksgiving dinner image via Shutterstock]
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