As fall term winds down and campus prepares for winterim, some Dartmouth students find themselves celebrating the holiday season weeks earlier than its actual dates. Rather than dampening festivities, the long break schedule has produced an array of unique traditions — from cozy craft nights to full-scale Thanksgiving banquets — that bring students together before they scatter for the six-week break.
Sophie Johnson ’29 recently gathered with friends to partake in classic Christmastime activities.
“We made gingerbread houses, drank hot chocolate and listened to Christmas music,” she said. “I really love Christmas. It’s my favorite holiday.”
Others celebrate through larger, more traditional gatherings. Agape Christian Fellowship hosts an annual Thanksgiving banquet on the last Saturday of fall term, a tradition for the past few decades, according to member Kledian Marinaj ’26.
According to Isaiah Tsai ’28, the Agape celebration includes worship and toasts. Students arrive hours early to cook a full turkey dinner feast for the celebration. Planning begins weeks in advance, Tsai explained, with Agape’s service team coordinating logistics, reserving a church venue and organizing icebreakers for the group to participate in.
“We cook, we have a time of worship and then we eat together,” Tsai said. “There [are] several toasts from students, which is really nice because we [get] to hear how God has worked through Agape and their lives. It’s always nice to hear good things about what we’re doing.”
The Rude Mechanicals, Dartmouth’s Shakespeare theater group, has recently started holding a “Mechsgiving.”
Aleksa Sotirov ’26, who joined the Mechs his freshman fall and serves as the treasurer, said that the event was first planned from an “impulsive idea” last fall.
“We had just done a show that we were all particularly happy about and we had a lot of new members who were very excited to get involved,” Sotirov said. “So we ended up doing this sort of potluck situation that we affectionately called Mechsgiving.”
The inaugural spread included spinach artichoke dip, stuffing and the Serbian baked beans that Sotirov prepared.
Because of the early start to the College’s winterim, many festivities take place weeks earlier than they would elsewhere, which has evoked mixed emotions.
For Johnson, the timing is bittersweet. While she appreciates winterim for a break from academics, leaving campus so early means missing out on a wide range of seasonal traditions in Hanover, from caroling to Secret Santa.
“I can’t celebrate Christmas with my friends here,” Johnson said. “It would really be fun to be here in December before Christmas.”
However, other students embrace the earlier timing. Marinaj described Agape’s early Thanksgiving celebration as perfectly timed, as the meal is a chance to decompress as finals stress reaches its peak.
“Since we get stressed for finals, it’s good having a meal with the people you care about and spend a lot of the term with,” Marinaj said. “As we destress and enjoy [homemade] food, it gives me a really good push to power through finals.”
Sotirov echoed the sentiment, noting that Mechsgiving provides a welcome shift from the stress of wrapping up the term.
“It felt like a good closing ceremony for the term in particular, because it’s after the end-of-term meeting [where] there’s a lot of business to be done,” Sotirov said. “It’s good to have Mechsgiving as we all get together socially and [it] doesn’t need to be about the company or about Shakespeare or anything. We can just have a good time.”
Ultimately, despite differences in structure, size and tradition, students all said these celebrations are deeply meaningful.
Agape’s Thanksgiving celebration holds spiritual and social importance, according to Tsai.
“We try to hold this event with an intention of centering our time around Christ,” Tsai said. “It’s really about just creating a space for Christians to have a lot of fun in ways that you can’t really experience [in] other places on campus.”
Marinaj added that the banquet allowed for unique communal connection.
“I consider Agape like a family to me as well,” Marinaj said. “Agape is the Greek word for sacrificial love. Seeing that come to fruition in just the planning of the event and the way that people try to carry themselves [is] basically perfect.”
Amidst the end of term chaos, early holiday celebrations provide a space for people to take a break and spend time in community.
“Communing over a meal together is the best way of getting people together,” Sotirov said. “Mechsgiving was a good incentive for us to get together outside of the context of doing theater.”
As the term accelerates towards finals and students prepare to head home, these early celebrations serve as places of warmth, gratitude and companionship. Whether through worship, potlucks or crafts, they turn an otherwise hectic November into a season of collective joy. In marking the holidays early, students aren’t losing out on tradition — they’re reshaping it into something uniquely their own.
