** This is a sponsored collaboration with Basic Invite. All opinions and thoughts are 100% my own.**
It’s finally December, meaning that I don’t have to pretend that I haven’t been listening to my Christmas playlist since November 1, my apartment can smell like Christmas cookie 24/7, and I can start buying all the gifts for all my favorite people. It kinda sucks that the beginning of December is also finals week for all the college students out there. How can you really be happy to bake the round sugar cookies with snowmen on them and blast carols when you have a huge history paper that’s due in two days. Don’t fret my friends; I’ve still managed to be in the holiday spirit every single year I’ve been in college. Here are some things that I’ve done in the past to get geared up for the holidays while I’m suffering through finals!
Decorate your room with festive decor.
My first suggestion is that you decorate your room, apartment, dorm, car, or whatever to have a little bit of holiday pizzazz. You can put up twinkly lights, decorate a small Christmas tree, or hang some stockings. I love my mini tree that I bought from Michael’s last year when it was like 75% off. The all gold theme was perfection. I wasn’t the smartest gal and left it in my storage area at my parent’s home so it’s missing from my room this year. So sad.
Take group pictures for a holiday card!
Grab your friends and have a holiday-themed photo shoot. Yes, this may be influenced by the fact that I love photo shoots and think they are so much fun. What’s a better study break! Almost every single shopping center probably has a common area with a big tree and obnoxious ornaments that will make the nicest background for a photo.
Hannah and I are never together during November and December to take a picture to send out for a blog holiday card, but we did get one after Christmas last year. So… we teamed up with Basic Invite to make our own blog Christmas cards. I absolutely love the way they turned out and are super festive. I have one of them pinned on my memory board in my room too. How cute would it be to make a traditional pose or wardrobe for your Christmas cards to collect over the years? The software for the website lets you customize colors for all their designs and change the message, paper type, and basically anything else under the stars.
If I wasn’t balling on a budget, I would even splurge for their gorgeous gold foil designs. Thank you so much to the team at Basic Invite for sponsoring this post and for the super cute Christmas cards! They also have the cutest graduation, engagement, and wedding lines! You can check out their website here and follow them on all their social media here and here.
Play a Christmas playlist or album when you’re cleaning/eating/breathing/etc.
I love a good Christmas playlist and found that the one I curated for myself is the best because I know it has all the upbeat holiday cheer that I love. Don’t get me wrong, I love a somber and chilling rendition of Silent Night, but at the same time I want to be in a happy, cheerful mood! You should go here to check out my favorite Christmas songs (aka J. Bieb’s entire album). I am always listening to holiday tunes during the month of December. It’s probably my favorite way of getting into the holiday spirit and I make sure to listen while I’m driving, cleaning, blogging, etc.
Organize a gift exchange during the last week of class!
My first year of college my friend and I organized a gift exchange for our entire floor. We played it white elephant style and it was a blast. To just hang out with some friends and chill for a couple hours for a glorified study break was awesome. If you want to take this idea and run with it, I’d suggest having some snacks, making it ugly Christmas sweater themed, and have some music running in the background.
You can collect a couple of dollars from everyone to buy the food and just host it in your dorm communal area or at someone’s apartment once you’ve gone off campus! Seriously, that is one of my favorite memories from my fall semester of the first year. If you have a smaller group of friends that you’d want to do this with, I love Secret Santa. This year the Blogger Secret Santa I’m participating in is hosted by Abigail and Cathleen who are using the Elfster program to facilitate it. I can’t wait to start shopping for my Secret Santa blogger gal!!
So, there you have it! My favorite ways to get into the holiday zone when you’re slaving away in the library trying to salvage the semester. On that note, where did this semester even go? I cannot believe that was my last fall semester as an undergrad at Carolina!! Woah!
keep on keepin’ on,
