It's almost Christmas break which means parties, tons of movies, gifts, baking, gift shopping, and of course..... finals.

We can admit it, while we may be engaging in Christmas festivities here and there - nobody can fully relax and enjoy this season until we can breathe again. In fact, by the time people start sharing their excitement, we often seem to come off a little something like this:

As the people around us begin the celebration, we begin the panicked studying and "all-nighters."

As we turn our Christmas music down and leave our friends houses early in order to study, we can't help but stress about out upcoming exams.

It probably doesn't help that we're currently living off of minimum sleep and maximum coffee.

Our senses are in overdrive and that constant thought looms around in the back of our head:

What happens if we don't succeed?

It's easy to roll our eyes when we're comforted with the statement, "Your grades do not define you,"
because let's be honest, in a way - they do.

Essentially our grades will define parts of our lives.

They'll define our GPA and what graduate schools we get into.

Our grades may define aspects of our financial aid and our future jobs.

Grades may change our schedules for the next semester or our plans -
but they will not define who we are.

Our grades will impact our lives and our futures -
but they will not impact the legacy we leave behind or define who we are.

We all fall victim to forms of stress.

We have all passed up on moments because we feel like we can't lose one drop of time that could be used to prepare for these tests.

In our minds we're being responsible, but at the same time we may be stripping ourselves of aspects that are fulfilling for us in ways an A in an course can never be.

Years from now we won't remember the exact grade we made on our biology exam, but we will remember the lady we stopped and took the time to talk to at Starbucks before we opened our books up and crammed.

We won't necessarily regret the amount of time we spent studying, but we'll forever be upset we missed the annual Christmas service for just 30 minutes extra of studying.

Dropping a few points in a class will not define us, or how we affect the people around us, or the ways we impact those we come into contact with.

Realistically, our final GPA does not necessarily hold our future in it's hands.

The grade our professor marks on our paper doesn't define who we are as people, but the way we treat others will.

All A's will not be there for us when things get tough, but our family and friends will and that's something that isn't reliant upon an exam or a grade.

The point is not to convince college students to blow finals off, but instead to make it clear that when we're giving it our all - failure isn't the end of world.

If we study all week and still come up a few points short on our final grade, we are not failures as students or as people.

We won't fail our final because we took an hour off from studying to grab a bite to eat with friends, or because we took some time to enjoy a Christmas party with our college church group.

Our world will keep spinning and we will continue to work hard and succeed in other aspects of our lives.

This is simply a reminder to breathe.

Relax a little bit in-between study sessions and remember to enjoy the holiday season.

Remember that we can put the fate of our jobs in our grades' hands, but not our entire being.

Know that who we are and what we stand for means more than where we end up or what grade we're able to put on applications.

Take a step back, relax, and enjoy the holidays in-between finishing up the semester.

Until we can find a way to ensure Santa will leave us A's under the tree, we're stuck dealing with finals and that shouldn't keep us from all the fun, maybe just a little of it.