It’s December now. Hanukkah just ended, while Christmas, Kwanzaa and the New Year are quickly approaching. With the holidays comes the long-awaited Winter Break and, for the first time in seven years, we have a solid two full weeks off.

To show just how rare this is, we only get a two week winter break whenever Christmas and New Year’s Eve falls on a Wednesday. The last time this happened was in 2007, when the senior class was in sixth grade.

What’s even better about the break being longer is that Principal Mark Greenfelder’s attitude toward break. Last year, he instituted a policy requesting that teachers refrain from assigning lengthy and difficult assignments over school breaks. This year is the third in a row that Greenfelder has made this request. We would like to extend a thank you to our principal for thinking about our health and welfare during the holidays.

Winter Break is a time for students to literally take a break from school; it is called Winter Break, not Winter Work Week. It’s a time for students to unwind and spend time with family and friends. It’s a time for those students who are so overloaded with multiple APs and sports to take a break and catch up on their zzzzzzzzzzzzzsssssss. It’s not a time to be locked away doing hours of assignments, working tirelessly on projects and essays that were assigned merely because we have two weeks off.

Also, many students travel over the break to visit family out-of-state or just to take a vacation; what could be worse than homework while you’re out of town?

Another perk of the longer Winter Break is not having to go to school during the half week before Christmas. Not much work actually gets done during that time because it’s right before the break and everyone is looking forward to having time off. It’s better to have those days off than come to school and waste time waiting for the break.

A longer Winter Break is a better Winter Break, so go out and enjoy those extra seven days, because it’s not like the New Year: This holiday comes along only three times in one’s FCPS career. It’s time to get your jingle on, deck the halls, sing fa-la-la-la-la and indulge in some online shopping—don’t want those crowds at the mall to wreck your mood.