Congratulations! You’ve done it. You’ve finished another semester of college and are that much closer to obtaining the paper degree it seems like you’ve been working towards since kindergarten. These past few weeks have been filled with exams, research papers, copious amounts of coffee and hopefully not too many pairs of sweat pants and fuzzy socks. Whatever your finals week looked like, it’s time to go home and celebrate all the hard work you’ve put in this semester.
Coming back home for the holidays can bring up a lot of old memories as well as old habits. Whether you left your small town dying to go to a big city college or you were more apprehensive about leaving your family and friends, re-entering back into your “old life” can pose a bit of a challenge for students. Sometimes it’s difficult to come back for winter break because it disrupts the routine that you’ve been working hard to maintain while at school. Over the past four months you’ve gotten into a specific rhythm—you wake up for class at a certain time, go to the dining hall with friends throughout the day, you have a certain corner of the library you like to study in—and so while heading home will likely be filled with fun reunions, the difficulty of “re-entry” should not be understated.
A big source of anxiety can be interacting with old high school friends and acquaintances. You’ve changed SO much since prom and want to make sure that whoever you connect with from high school can see that. Maybe you’ve changed your Instagram presence and curated your Facebook profile to reflect the “new you,” but the chance of running into familiar faces offline can certainly cause some uneasiness.
You want to be invited to all of the Christmas and New Year’s party celebrations but choosing what to wear to these reunion events and pinpointing the “aesthetic” that you want to present yourself in can pose a multi-faceted challenge. If you’re like me, you probably put too much pressure on yourself to “impress” with a good outfit. You want to look put together but you don’t want to look like you’re trying too hard—you want to look fashionable but let’s face it, you also want to look hot. My advice for this predicament is simple: less is more when you’ve got a “statement” piece. This Fashionista wears a tight black and white turtleneck tucked into high-waisted jeans and adds a fuzzy black coat and suede heeled boots to elevate the classic look. The coat and boot details clearly express her awareness of style and fashion but they don’t overwhelm or give off the impression that she is trying too hard. Try and emulate this look the next time you agree to “get coffee” with your high school ex or if you decide to go to that casual Christmas get together.
