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During the winter holidays, students are faced with the predicament of staying behind because they cannot find a way home. Whether they are miles away from their families or lacking the finances to get a ticket home, some students that stay are left with nothing to do. We have proposed to create a scavenger hunt for students in the Kingsville and Corpus Christi area.  We will send several groups of people on a search for a list of items that center around the Holiday season. We will start here at the Texas A&M University Kingsville campus at the Bell Tower and give the groups 4 to 5 hours to find as many items as possible. For transportation, the students could use one of their own personal vehicles or use the city bus.  Each group must take a picture with each item on the list to ensure that they completed the task. The groups will be asked to be back at the bell tower around a specific time and show us the pictures of the items found. There will be a prize for each team at the end of the scavenger hunt, even for the group that comes in last. This would be a great, fun activity to get students active and excited for the holidays. 


 
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Every year families gather to celebrate the many different holidays and cherish the moments they have together. Unfortunately, preparing the large dinner for the multiple guests and buying the presents for all those people can be frustrating. Other blues can include finding the time to travel to another family member’s house, decorating the house, and getting around flight delays. Everyone has their own story of holiday blues and mine will not be the last. During Christmas and Thanksgiving, it has always been a predicament to decide who’s house we will we be holding the holidays. Will we stay at grandma’s, auntie’s, or our house? My family is scattered in different parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. My grandparents live in San Antonio, Texas and my aunt and uncle live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  We try to switch it up every couple of years, but not everyone is satisfied with the decisions.  My aunt constantly nags that we never come up to see her and that we don’t put any effort to find time to come see her.  The truth is that we do not have the money to travel that far North, plus most of the family lives down South.  During some holidays we only get a few days off from school, especially for Thanksgiving. In this case, we do not have the time to stay with her for more than two days.  For New Years in 2008, we planned to travel to my aunt’s house; however, there was a snow storm that delayed our trip and we were not able to go. She was very understanding but was still upset she did not get to see us. 

Although the Holiday blues seem inescapable, there are many tips to help others get through the hardships.  What I would suggest to family members who live far away from each other would be to get a web camera so they could talk and see each other at the same time.  This way everyone will feel closer and get to see each other’s faces. Another thing would be to plan a plan-B if there is a chance of bad weather conditions, which may in turn delay the mode of transportation. To help regulate your spending habits only buy the things you need at first and start looking for gifts months before hand.  My advice is to ask other family members to bring a dish or presents to take off some of the load; do not take on the entire Holiday alone.  Holidays should not be about stressing over the burned turkey or worrying about what others think of the choice of decorations. One song that always makes my Christmas Blues go away is the Dinner Bell Carol that we performed in our High School Choir. This song completely describes the chaos that occurs during the Holidays and makes me laugh.