Happy Holidays
Happy Holidays from Your Union
It hasn’t been the easiest year, and we all need a bit of extra help in the winter.
Whether you’re staying in Leeds or heading home over the break, a home student or international, LUU’s here to help make your holidays happy – whether it’s with a festive giveaway, tasty recipes or places for you to connect with other students in the same boat as you.
This page is the place to be to discover the ways we’re supporting you over the break, and what we’ve done for students virtually this year – as well as some festive fun along the way.
Read on for your virtual Christmas card from LUU and the University.
From Sophia, your Welfare Officer 2020/21
Festive Giveaways
Staying in Leeds over the break? We’re running some festive giveaways to keep you happy, busy and with a full belly.
- Festive food packs: Students can nominate their friends staying in Leeds over the break to receive one of 150 free treat packages – a little bit of festive joy in what’s been a difficult year. Nominate a friend here to receive a pack – they’ll be posting out from 17 December.
- Free craft kits: We’ve got 30 kits to give away to students packed with a decorative ornament and craft materials. Get creative and keep your accommodation looking merry and bright. You can collect these from the Help and Support desk (temporarily in the Riley Smith Theatre) from Tuesday 8 December onward – but hurry before they run out!
Stock up on festive merch from Gear
Gear is your one-stop shop for all your University of Leeds merchandise needs.
They’ve just rolled out their Christmas stock, with a range of festive-themed hoodies to keep you warm this winter – and a particularly cute reindeer soft toy.
You can buy online or visit the shop located in the heart of your Union building.
What can I do in Leeds over the break?
There’s plenty you can do this year to stay entertained, connect with others, and share festive traditions with fellow students. Every year the University puts together an Out of Term guide to keep you busy and active while the University is shut.
You can download it from the University’s Out of Term page. Keep checking back there for updates and extras. Or, for more interactive connections with fellow students, you can join the Global Community Teams space or chat on the LUU Leeds Student Community Group on Facebook.
You can also see the festive opening times for the University and Union, and the on-campus libraries, cafes and outlets that you can still take advantage of for much of the break.
Also, check out the LUU events page for events we’re running over the festive period.
When the weather is cold, staying in is the cosy option – but getting outside can do you good as well. Despite the circumstances, there are plenty of wintry activities in Leeds and beyond that you can take advantage of this break. Check out these resources for ideas for activities around Leeds and Yorkshire:
- Leeds List give great recommendations all year round, including the festive period. They’ve also got plenty of suggestions for outdoor activities like walks and bike rides to check out.
- Visit Leeds have some brilliant suggestions for the winter season.
- Or here’s an article from the Yorkshire Evening Post listing festive light displays, grottos and more for you to visit this year.
Festive food around the world
This year LUU put together its first ever International Student Advisory Board, to amplify the voice of the global community at Leeds and to make sure it is as well-represented as possible.
This holiday season, why not try out some festive recipes from countries around the world, courtesy of students who sit on the Board – with a few extra bits of culture thrown in for good measure.
LUU Help and Support
Help and Support will be closed for a period over Christmas – you can see Union closed times here. However you can contact them any time outside of this period for support with anything, from mental health to academic worries. Here’s a few testimonials from students they’ve helped out this year.
- “Thanks so much for your help. You are the only person who has listened to me and provided support to get things sorted.”
- “Your advice gave me the confidence to go back and negotiate with my landlord, who eventually agreed to release me from my contract!”
- “I was having a really hard time in my flat, I wanted to move out and was considering going home. With help from my Adviser I managed to resolve things with my flatmates and things are much better now.”
- “Everything was a big mess and I couldn’t see a way out. I sat down with an Adviser who listened to me and helped me work out a plan. She also helped me get some money from the emergency hardship fund, which was a massive relief.”
See more about what Help and Support can offer, and how to contact them, by clicking here.
LUU Academic Representation
Academic life has been shaken up too this year, but remember you can always get the support of your student School Reps and Course Reps to fight to make your studies better. Here’s a few highlights of things that your Reps have managed to change across University departments in 2020.
- Biological Sciences – Moved deadlines to make things easier for students at the end of first term, particularly with the new government guidance about sending students home.
- Chemistry – Worked with the staff members in the school to modify the workload as a response to concerns about burnout with all teaching delivered remotely
- Leeds University Business School – At the start of the year, LUBS students told School Reps that they needed more on-campus study spaces. The Reps worked with the Business School to advertise open spaces that weren’t being used, and now usage has significantly increased.
- Philosophy, History and the Religion of Science – Reps used their platforms, including meetings with the University Senate – to gather feedback from students on degree classifications in light of the pandemic, which was passed onto the School.
You can find a list of your Reps’ names, and how to get in touch, by searching here.
Christmas Traditions explained
Father Christmas has origins in the 4th century with St Nikolaus, the saint of children – thus the name Santa Claus which is still popular in the UK.
In the mid-17th century, the figure of Father Christmas was created, and in the 19th century the Victorians added the idea that he brought gifts to children in the night with reindeer and stockings. These traditions are still popular today – including leaving a mince pie out for him on Christmas Eve, and a carrot for head reindeer Rudolph.
Mince pies are a really old UK Christmas treat, going back to the middle ages. Nowadays they contain dried fruit and spices but in the middle ages contained meat, or 13 different ingredients to represent Jesus and his disciples.
If you make your own mince pies, tradition says you should only stir the ingredients clockwise, for good luck – and also eat them every day for each of the twelve days of Christmas.
The classic association with mistletoe is that lovers kiss standing underneath a sprig of it. In ancient times, households were decorated with mistletoe to offer shelter and protection, often against evil spirits, and it was also considered a symbol of fertility.
Once again it was the Victorians who ran with the fertility and romance symbolism, giving us the kissing association that still holds today.
Every Christmas, households all over the UK pull Christmas crackers at the dinner table – making a distinctive bang and often with a riddle, joke, or small gift inside.
Christmas crackers were first made in the mid-19th century by a London sweet maker called Tom Smith. Inspired by bon-bon sweets in Paris with their decorated wrappers, he added the extra element of a bang when the cracker was pulled.
The idea of a ‘Christmas tree’ dates back to medieval France and Germany, where plays were held in the middle of winter celebrating the creation of the world. In these plays, a tree would be decorated with apples and ribbons to represent the tree in the Garden of Eden.
Queen Victoria popularised the household Christmas tree in Britain. Her husband Albert was German, and put one up in Windsor Castle in 1841.
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