Thanksgiving is our favorite holiday here at CollegeCandy; we even made little hand turkey pictures and hung ‘em up in the office! Yeah, we’re festive! Even thinking about tomorrow makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside (although that could just be the spiced apple cider we just drank).

Here are our Top 5 Favorite Things About Thanksgiving:

1. The Food: Um. Duh? All of our favorite things on one table, in one night? Heaven! From the stuffing to the sweet potatoes to the millions of desserts, there is nothing better than that feeling of so-full-you-wanna-die that comes after a good Thanksgiving meal.

2. The Conversation: Who knew grandpa had such a dirty mind? The man can tell a sex joke like no other. We don’t know why it all comes out at Thanksgiving, but one minute you are complimenting Aunt Susie on her awesome pumpkin bread and the next minute your Great Uncle Frank is doing inappropriate things with the cornucopia in the middle of the table.

3. Friends: Or, even better, enemies. Thanksgiving is a family holiday, which means everyone is comin’ back home. That also means that you will most likely be running into those a**holes from high school who thought they were too cool for school. Well look who’s on top now, bitches.

4. The Booze: My mom is always giving me a hard time about my drinking: “Honey, you drink too much,” or, “It is not lady-like to chug a beer like that!” But not on Thanksgiving. I don’t know if she’s too drunk to notice, or if she just doesn’t care because it’s a holiday, but the booze is flowing…and I enjoy every last drop.

5. The Parade: Yeah it’s cheesy and really not as cool once you are over the age of 6, but it’s tradition. And it’s a cute tradition. And your mom won’t yell at you if you turn it into a drinking game!

You know, I didn’t really think there was a substantial amount of damage to survey this Thanksgiving on the Upper-East Side. In fact, tonight’s Gossip Girl episode was more like a slice of pumpkin pie than a carving station. Even Nate’s dad getting handcuffed and taken to jail was quite the heartfelt moment, as far as FBI’s most wanted list goes. Oops, did I just ruin that plotline for you? Read More »

While Halloween now is more closely associated with finding a (slutty) costume and drinking Halloween inspired beverages, as a kid, there was nothing better than going door to door loading up on enough candy to last you till the 4th of July.Only problem is, my mom - the smart woman that she is - knew her life would be torturous through July if she let her three hyper children keep that much sugar around.

So every year, my two older brothers and I would have to dump all of our coveted, prized candy into the middle of the table. My mother then carefully separated the candy into piles - Milky Ways in one pile, Twix in another, Candy Corn in another, and so on. She then handed a bucket to each of us and, one by one, we would go around taking our pick and filling our buckets.

Once they were filled, the rest of the candy went to inner-city kids whose neighborhoods were too dangerous to trick-or-treat in (which now I see was a very noble thing but at the time I couldn’t understand why they deserved my candy gold. After all, I spent three long hours in the cold with clown makeup on my face, saying stupid poems at people’s doors while they filled my bag up with all that deliciousness). Read More »

Aside from the night after you’ve taken your last final, the first week of school is generally the best time of the whole semester. The weather is great, you’re reunited with all of your friends, and the school year has returned just when you were starting to feel like you had too much free time.

The campus is buzzing with returning students, eager to see what the new year has in store. Even if you anticipate your hardest semester to date, there’s still a feeling of excitement in the air during the very first week.

1. You Get to Scope Out Your New Classes

Maybe I’m a dork, but I was always excited to see what my new classes would be like. In certain classes–the must-take courses taught by the professors with the best reputations– it was great to see what all the buzz was about. Other classes might have sounded intriguing in the course catalog; reading through the syllabus on the first day, I’d think the class sounded interesting, and hadn’t been assigned 500 pages of reading to prove me otherwise. I would also look through the syllabus and see what the course requirements looked like, so I could estimate how little effort I could put into the class, and still walk away with an “A.”

Of course, it’s also fun to see who else has signed up for the class. Whether you walk through the door and see five of the girls from your freshman dorm, or right into the eyes of your new insta-crush, it’s fun to find out who you’ll be taking the class with. Read More »

Ah, Thanksgiving traditions.

Some of them are sweet; sitting around a table surrounded by people you love, giving thanks for all the things you’ve been given. Some of them are funny; deep frying an entire turkey or playing board games with a bunch of drunk family members. And some of them, well, some of them we’d really like to never go through again; dodging the inevitable “why are you still single / what are you studying / what are you going to do with a liberal arts degree?” question or watching your uncle’s face turn red as he realizes your politics in no way represent his.

My family has a lot of traditions (many of which include alcohol and loud Italian yelling matches), but one of my favorite things to do every year as a kid was sit down in front of the TV with my aunt and uncle and watch Mystery Science Theater 3000. Read More »