Santa’s little student helpers

**Ask the average student what this time of year means for them and you’ll get answers like essays, exhaustion, a swiftly dwindling student loan and even more essays. It’s freezing, it’s wet and the U1 is filled with a constant murky steam and the cold that’s been clinging on for weeks now can no longer be attributed to fresher’s flu. **

We work until long after dark and then retreat to our under-heated houses to sit in the cold and try to warm ourselves with a hot drink, muttering about the weather and how miserable it all is. In short, we become Scrooge, and the ever-nearing festive season is left ignored as far as possible in favour of more pressing things in life.

Or at least most of us do – and this is where I extract myself from the collective ‘we’, because while my friends bemoan the festive shop window displays that spring up in September and the endless roast dinners that epitomise every supermarket advert as soon as the leaves start falling, I relish in it. Christmas is ruddy marvellous, and in my opinion it can never come soon enough.

Yes, the incredibly hyped preamble can be annoying when you have to listen to the same carol on repeat in the campus Costcutters, but it also gives us beautiful lights in the wretchedly early darkness and ridiculous shopping bargains that you’d never see at any other time of year.
It gives us mulled wine and mince pies, and a plethora of delicious caffeinated drinks at every coffee shop in the country. Finally, it gives us that glorious pervasive feeling of “sod it, it’s Christmas soon” which allows us to discard academic and personal problems in favour of a festive film or a trip to the local pub.

And yes, some of you might argue that there’s a time and a place for the Christmas sentiment, and that time is December. But if that’s true, then how do we celebrate the season with our university peers?

If the festive season was left until the end of term we’d miss out on the chance for a whole other family-free Christmas day, with Christmas lunch (complete with any student additions you see fit to add – bacon weave anyone?), Christmas presents (which can be naughty), Christmas pudding (double the brandy) and Christmas drinking (with people who don’t frown disapprovingly if you get slightly tiddled before the food is even served).

In short, a student Christmas is not an experience to pass up, and when we’re surrounded by delicious food, delightful decorations and dubious drinks then why not make the most of the festive spirit?

Even my mutinous housemates have embraced the holiday cheer and are now actively encouraging me to deck our hall with boughs of holly. The hype isn’t going to die no matter how much moaning you do about it.