The final grades have been submitted, and I (and my students) are now on break. My brother arrived home from college last night. My own semester of grad school has ended. It’s Christmas break!

Break is often a time of seeing old friends, celebrating holidays with family, and catching up on sleep. During college, it was also a time to get a cold, unfortunately.

Break is a blank slate of freedom – often too short to get a job, but too long to not have a plan of some kind. Whether you’ve got six weeks off, or you’re going back for J-term, break is a good time to do things you can’t do during the academic year.

Here are a few ideas for making the most of Christmas break:

Relax, recreate, rejuvenate. Try to actually go to bed at a decent hour, and don’t sleep the day away. Take a walk with the dog, or with a friend you’ve been meaning to catch up with. Spend some time in the great outdoors. Drink tea. Eat chicken noodle soup. Light some candles and listen to some great music. Rest.

Play with your food. Whether or not you have a kitchen at school, you probably don’t have much time to use it. So find some fun recipes in your mom’s cookbook stash or on food blogs, and try to make something a little labor intensive: homemade bread, ratatouille, pecan pie.

Expand your mind. Read a book that’s intelligent and engaging, and completely unrelated to your schoolwork. (Try looking at the various “Year in Reading” lists at The Millions for ideas.) Educate yourself on politics or economics or culture by reading a few articles in a good magazine or newspaper. Think about what books you’d like to read in the coming year.

Be cinematical. Go see a few movies that are nominated for awards. Rent a foreign film. Rent a good film from early in the year that you missed. Consider watching a miniseries (like John Adams) or a documentary series or an entire show that will challenge you to think differently (like The Wire). Check out what’s on Netflix and Hulu. Look at lists of what’s coming up this year. Check out Rotten Tomatoes for ideas.

Clean house. Go through your closet and give away all the clothes you didn’t wear this year. Toss old papers you’ll never look at. Check your CD and book collection and see if there’s anything you can give away or sell on Amazon.com. Donate some books to your local library.

Serve. Call your grandparents and see if they need anything done around the house. Help your little brother build the Lego castle he received for Christmas. Volunteer to fold clothes at the crisis pregnancy center or serve meals at the Rescue Mission. Wash the dishes occasionally, or do your own laundry. Offer to fill in for a vacationing usher or Sunday school teacher. Take a friend out for coffee, and spend as much time as possible talking about them.

Seek your God. What would He have you do next year? What practices would he want you to institute? What habits would he want you to develop, or dismantle? Whose lives can you build into? Who can you seek for counsel and advice?