The Holiday season is a time to celebrate with those closest to you. It’s a time to get together and eat, talk and spend time with your family. For many college students who attend college out of state or away from their family though, it may be a lonely day, or one that does not have the same meaning to those who have family close by.
For people who do not have any immediate family in the southern California area, the holidays are often a time to see who your true family is. It may be your closest friends who invite you to their house, a boyfriend or girlfriend or someone you never expected to extend an invitation to ensure you are not alone during the Holiday season.
From first-hand experience, it is a great feeling when people take the time to invite you to a gathering and make you feel welcome. It can really make the difference between a good and bad day.
If you are one of those people who get invited to someone else’s house for the holidays, make sure you are polite and grateful. Always RSVP ahead time and express your gratitude for the invitation, whether you decide to go or not. It is also always polite to ask if there is anything you can bring or contribute. No one likes a moocher.
Remember to dress nice and try to talk to everyone. If someone was nice enough to invite you to share the holidays with them and their family, the least you can do is be polite and get to know people at the party or gathering you attend.
For those of you who have a lot of family that live close by, and are lucky enough to spend every holiday with them, remember to not forget about your friends, co-workers or classmates who may not have anything to do.
For the upcoming holidays, I hope everyone has people around them to celebrate with and enjoy a great end to 2011!
I really enjoyed your post. It made me appreciate the fact that I can spend the holidays with my family. We often times take for granted the fact that we have our family in So-Cal and don't realize that others are forced to spend the holidays alone because they are far away from home.
ReplyDeleteI'm am very fortunate to have a lot of my family within driving distance. They're all here along with all of my friends and that's something I'm going to struggle leaving if the time ever comes if I have to move far away for whatever reason.
ReplyDeleteI do my best not to take this for granted and try to spend my holidays with everyone close to me.
I find as I grow up that I branch out a little more with who I celebrate my holidays with, my brother's girlfriend's parents were really friendly and fun this Thanksgiving.
ReplyDeleteBut I really look forward to making/eating tamales for Christmas while playing lotteria. Fun times!
I enjoyed this story becasue it can relate to anyone, and you can attract a lot of readers by writing broad stories.
This is a great article! As college students, especially as we get older, this kind of topic becomes really relevant to us. And like others have said, sometimes those of us with family close can take that for granted.
ReplyDeleteI personally have always bounced around during this season because I have so much immediate family, so it isn't necessarily new to me. But the next step will be when the times comes to celebrate with friends or a significant other. To me, that just seems really exciting, because you get to experience the holidays in new ways.
We celebrated this Thanksgiving with my grandmother as and my parents. Usually my sister is there with her boyfriend but this year they went to Indiana and Minnisota to be with his family for the first time. I felt a little bad about that but I think it was good for her boyfriend since all the time he's coming over to our place cause he's alone out here. It shows too that you don't have to stay here and maybe you can be the plus 1 for someone else. :)
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