Everyone knows that the best time of year falls during Christmas time. However, before they can start pulling out the Christmas decorations, turning on ABC Family's Countdown to Christmas, or drinking the many Christmas-flavored drinks, college kids must first suffer through what I have termed "The Most Awful Time of the Year." With the last week of class and two weeks of finals falling right after Thanksgiving, college kids must come back from a relaxing four days of stuffing their faces to a stressful couple of weeks. Here are some of the emotions college kids will experience during this year's Most Awful Time of the Year.

1. Denial

This lovely emotion hits you on Black Friday morning after an entire day of stuffing your face and an entire night of scoping out the best deals. At some point on this day, you will be reminded of the amount of work you have to do in preparation for the next few weeks. However, instead of sitting down and getting some of it out of the way you, of course, deny, deny, deny. I mean if you pretend it's not there it will surely disappear, right???

2. Avoidance

This one gets ya on Sunday after you've made the drive back to campus from your loving, dog-filled home. You've accepted that you have a mountain load of work to do, but again instead of accomplishing any of it, you've decided that you're just going to avoid all of it. I mean, all of your roommates are getting back at the same time as you, so you just have to spend the next three hours catching with every single detail you missed over the last four days.

3. Worry

You sit down to start on your homework, and you start to worry that you won't have time to do any of it. What with the studying you'll have to do for multiple classes, the last-minute homework, the major projects you put off until the last minute, and, of course, the endless calculating to see just how much you have to make on your final to get your C up to an A. But hey, it's only late Sunday night - you have time.

4. Longing

This one hits you after a couple of hours of handwork during a social media break. As you're mindlessly swiping through Snapchat you notice more and more stories depicting people watching a Christmas movie or admiring Christmas lights. Then as you put down your phone and turn back to you notes on the American criminal justice system you can't help but wish you were somewhere, more Christmas-filled.

5. Stress

A day or two has passed and yet. you still have so much to study with even less time than you did before. Even though you finished your portion of the group project, you're still waiting on that one horrible group member to finish theirs. On top of the secondhand stress you're feeling thanks to the project, you have to somehow learn a third of two separate classes in preparation for the two tests you have coming up before the end of the week. AAAAAHHHHH

6. Panic

It's the day before everything is due, and you're nowhere near ready for your tests or confident enough to turn in any of your projects. All you want to do is curl up in a ball with the happiness of Christmas in the background, but instead you have to keep pushing through this awful week. There's absolutely no way you'll ever be able to finish everything in less than 24 hours, but your panic-induced brain is kicking in its survival instincts and is refusing to allow you to quit. Good luck.

7. Nothing

It's hour 0. The time of reckoning has come. The time where your last few days of late night cram sessions will be put to the ultimate test. You're exhausted, stretched beyond your limit, over-caffeinated, and pretty dead inside, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel. For at the end of this very last test, you are done and you will have survived the ultimate week from hell.

8. Brief Joy

The very moment you turn in that last test, and escape the classroom into the fresh air, the only feeling you are capable of feeling is pure, childlike joy. You feel like you could touch the sky, and that nothing could ever bring you down. You're finally, finally free to do what you please and to sleep as much as you want. At least for the first couple of minutes after the exam until you remember that next week is finals week, and you have three.

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Good luck, my fellow college students. Drink lots of coffee, eat lots of junk food, and may the curve be ever in your favor!