Halloween and Thanksgiving are over. According to most, it’s finally time to get into the holiday spirit. Many on campus are already honoring the season by decorating their dorm rooms or suites.
Cheering up the common room
Lily Scher, a freshman visual and media arts major, didn’t want to just spruce up her floor’s common room she said. She wanted it to bring cheer like the movie Elf and decided to partner with a couple of friends and her resident assistant to make the dorm decorations a surprise.
Scher said they made a plan before dressing up the common room, which was already adorned with a resident fish named Courage and a poster with the birthdays of everyone on the floor. They learned how to make large paper snowflakes from a friend, got supplies from the resident director’s office, and plotted out where everything should go in the room.
They gathered together at 1 a.m after everyone had gone to bed on the eve of Dec. 1 and started crafting snowflakes out of butcher paper, hanging christmas lights, and covering patches of the wall with wrapping paper from CVS.
“If anyone wants to swing by the 11th floor of the Little Building, it’s always open,” Scher said.
Other than the lights and the wrapping paper, few things were bought to adorn the common room, making cut paper an affordable option to decorate this holiday season.
Prepping for the holidays in Paramount
Decor went up for Christmas in one Paramount suite the day after everyone returned from Thanksgiving Break.
Lexi Fean, a freshman journalism major, said brightening her suite with garland, a miniature christmas tree, and stockings reminded her of shopping and decorating with her mother every Black Friday back home.
Sticky letters spell out “Merry Christmas” on the mirror and their gold mini Christmas tree sits atop the shelves holding the suite’s snacks.
The suite bought a lot of their decorations at Target, but Fean said they found the best deals at CVS.
Even so, decorating isn’t Fean’s favorite part about Christmas. She said her favorite thing is the happiness and the pace of the season.
“Some people complain about how crazy, hectic, and busy it is, but I like that about the holidays,” Fean said.
Piano Row decks out their dorm
The colorful Christmas lights, inspired by the Netflix show Stranger Things, went up in the hallway of a Piano Row suite over two months ago, before seasonal adornments even came to mind. More recently, the suite put up a Christmas tree, attached a menorah to the window, hung paper snowflakes, and completed their festive enhancements.
Nonetheless, the jury (and the suite) is still out on when the holiday season actually starts.
Alara Seigel, a freshman visual and media arts major, said the majority of the people in the suite think the holiday season starts after Halloween, whereas a select few start celebrating after Thanksgiving.
Siegel’s suite made their own paper snowflakes, decorated stockings, and bought other items for the common area from Target and T.J. Maxx.
“This season is all about giving and appreciating what you have,” Siegel said.