Thanksgiving To-Do List: On Campus Edition

My freshman year, I made the (admittedly questionable) decision to stay on campus over Thanksgiving for the express purpose of not feeling extra homesick after break. (I ended up feeling homesick during break instead!) Whether you’ve chosen to stay on campus for a similar reason or for a much more legitimate one, here are a few tips to make your on-campus Thanksgiving an enjoyable one!

Enjoy the quintessential Harvard Thanksgiving — emphasis on Harvard.

If you must enjoy Thanksgiving on Harvard’s campus (or chose to do so), you might as well experience Thanksgiving the way you only can on campus. Hop in line for Berg’s Thanksgiving dinner (or, honestly, any HUDS meal for the five-ish days of break) and alternately revel and sob at the fact that HUDS can create delicious food when it actually tries. When you’re done feasting, camp out in the Yard (with an appropriate number of layers) to watch the turkeys and snap artfully composed photographs that’ll make all your friends regret not staying on campus with you. (If you can’t find any turkeys, locate an empty common room whiteboard to start devising conspiracy theories about the source of Berg’s Thanksgiving meal.)

…Get your life together.

Let’s face it: sometimes there’s just not enough time during the school year to be a fully functional person. Letting a few tasks fall to the wayside — like sleeping a reasonable amount, or not treating your dorm room floor like a trash can — while not always healthy, is perfectly understandable. That said, you probably don’t want to charge into finals period with your life in (mild) disrepair, so take advantage of the extra free time over break to get your affairs in order. Let yourself sleep a full eight hours (or twelve hours) every day! Finally use the cleaning supplies that have been living under your bed! And if you still have some time left after catching up on chores — give yourself a chance to rest, too! — you can ensure that your life doesn’t fall into disrepair again by working ahead on psets due next week or planning for the summer.

Escape the Harvard bubble!

Even if you can’t make it home for Thanksgiving, you don’t have to spend all of break on campus. Accompany a friend to their family’s Thanksgiving dinner. Catch a train to New York! Or rent a Zipcar with some friends and venture down to Plymouth to visit a holiday-appropriate museum. Failing that, venture out into Boston to explore all the local haunts or to partake in the free (or discounted) opportunities that you haven’t found the time to visit while courses are in session.

Know you’re not alone.

While it can feel a little bit lonely staying on campus during a holiday centered around togetherness, you are absolutely not alone in staying close to school for the break. Given the shortness of the break, plenty of people stay on campus for Thanksgiving; it’s likely that more people in your social circle will stay for the break than you’ll reasonably be able to hang out with before Sunday. Even if no one in your current social circle is staying for the break, you can always make some new friends! The holiday season is all about gratitude and connection, so there’s no reason to restrict that togetherness to people you already know. Beyond those present on campus, you can also spend time (virtually) with your loved ones located far from Harvard! Schedule some video chats to ensure that you don’t have to travel home to feel those you love around you.

Hopefully, these tips will help you enjoy your break, even sans the opportunity to actually go home for a few days. Regardless, keep in mind that your break is meant to be just that: a break — so even if it’s not the most fun experience in the world, your focus should be on resting and recovering, anyway. Plus, there’s always winter break!!