Home for the Holidays

Mattie Hanson
Phi Delta Theta

I am lucky enough to been called a Southern Californian since high school. My home is about two hours away from the University of Southern California, and now that I’ve got my car on campus, it’s an easy matter to go back home for the weekend if I need to. While I try to stick around campus for the most part, there are a lot of perks to going home every once in a while.

I went home for the first four days of spring break last year with my roommate and another friend of ours. Although I generally consider my hometown to be about as boring as humanly possible, something about bringing friends home made it seem like a new place. We did touristy things that I would never have thought I’d enjoy. We laid out and tanned (I am from the Palm Springs area, after all) and because we had company, my mom spared no expense in making food for us all the time. It was awesome.

Even this year when I had to go back home one weekend for a doctor’s appointment, I found that I wasn’t as bored as I was in high school or all summer. Going back home when you’ve been at college for so long sort of makes it feel like a vacation. Peace, quiet, no classes or roommates to wake you up in the morning, even parents seem a little more fun. It sort of makes you wonder about that expression, “the grass is always greener on the other side.”

 One of the first times a lot of kids get a chance to go home after they start college is Thanksgiving break. Sure, they may see their parents over Parents’ Weekend, but for a lot of people, it’s the first time they’re going to be back in their home environment since starting college. That’s a pretty big deal.

Your first Thanksgiving back from college is full of the same questions asked by every single adult you know. “What are you studying?” “How are the dorms?” “What fraternity are you in?” “Keeping your grades up?” It gets repetitive and really old really fast, but it’s something that everyone has to deal with. It’s like they assume they’re the only person in the world considerate enough to ask how your college experience is going. Try to perfect the right answers the first time you get asked the questions and then let yourself go on autopilot every other time after that. Trust me, it gets easier.

This Thanksgiving, I’m doing something a little different. A lot of my friends are just planning to stay in Los Angeles over Thanksgiving break because they live too far away and it’s not worth the expense or the effort, so I offered to bring one of my good friends home with my over the break. I know it won’t be spring break by any stretch of the imagination, but Thanksgiving is about… well, giving thanks. I want my friends to know that I’m grateful for them. To be perfectly honest, I’m not too upset that it might get me out of some of the Thanksgiving Day cooking. 

Mattie is a freshman studying public relations. You may contact him at mdhanson@usc.edu.