How to do Christmas as a student!

With Michael Bublé fully defrosted, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! As the weather gets colder and the tissues come out for the new John Lewis advert, Christmas can feel a little different without the comfort of your home traditions – like opening advent calendars with siblings or helping mum put up the tree. But that doesn’t mean you still can’t enjoy Christmas to the fullest and put your spin on some typical Christmas traditions with your flatmates!

There are three pillars to the festive season; food, decorations and presents!

Food

Starting with everybody’s favourite – the food! Without mum or dad to whip up a feast you may want to showcase your inner Gordon Ramsay and chef up a meal to remember for your housemates.

Morrisons do a good range of fairly priced ingredients (or pre-prepped dishes if you’re already stressed enough with deadlines!), so all that’s left for you to do is round up your housemates, wear a paper crown and read the corny cracker jokes.

However, if you’d rather not leave the washing up to ferment for the whole Christmas holiday, Toby Carvery is the place to go! You don’t have to be traditional either as a meal out anywhere with your housemates to bask in the Christmas spirit is a great way to celebrate the academic year so far.

Decorations

The next non-negotiable for the full festive experience is decorations! If you’re feeling creative, making your own decorations is a great way to spend time with housemates and make them more personal too; there’s tons of tutorials online so there’s something for every skill level and paper chains are a great start.

Places like Poundland and Home Bargains are also great options to bring some festive cheer to your flat without weighing down your wallet. Another good option is to raid your attics for forgotten decorations and with luck you might even find a tree!

Presents

Finally, the one everyone is excited for – presents! Celebrating with family and friends is what Christmas is all about and showing them how much you appreciate them by getting something personal always goes down well.

However, with all your family to buy for too, buying gifts for all of your housemates can end up in them receiving impersonal presents. Not to fear though as secret Santa is the perfect solution! You can even set a cap of £5-10 so everyone can take part and work on getting something funny and personal so you can all have a laugh around the table discussing who you think bought for who.

Pair these with the same cheesy Christmas tunes and films and you’re all set for a perfect student Christmas!

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