How Majoring in History Almost Stole Christmas

"Get the biggest aluminum tree you can find, Charlie Brown,
maybe painted pink."

When I got to college, I noticed that my Christmas seasons were getting a little dimmer.  I spent the lead-up to Christmas studying for finals, writing papers, and generally hiding in the library or Union Tap Room.  After Thanksgiving, I had my Christmas music playlist on constantly, but the Charlie Brown soundtrack can only put you in the spirit so much when you're facing multiple exams.  By the time I got on my plane to Boston, I had just started to relax, and then within days Christmas was over.


In the past two years, though, I noticed that there were other factors that were stealing my Christmas season away.  I studied twentieth century American history and while I loved my classes and there are a lot of uplifting stories in that time period, there are also quite a bit that, for lack of a better phrase, just bring you down.  After each lecture of my Cold War era class, I would come home and tell my roommates, "Yep, today was about atomic bombs"or "Yeah, we talked about the rise and fall of labor unions" or "Lecture today was about the Vietnam War.  I'm going to take a nap.  For a while."