Every childhood experience is different, and in each experience, there is one time that defines all that is good and right in the world. For my childhood experience, the time that perennially defined the light in the world was the Christmas season.

To me, nothing in this world seems to stress the ideals of the Christmas season-love, charity and kindness-more than family, though to this day I get teary-eyed while watching A Charlie Brown Christmas because of its blatant goodness.

My parents’ house, all decorated just so, and warmed by a crackling fire, is nothing short of the womb of goodness and happiness in my life. How could the economy be taking a turn for the worse when I smell cookies and Christmas trees? All troubles fade into nothingness when stepping into the family house done up for Christmas.

This year, however, the family house is more than just a melting pot of holiday delight. This year, in my family house, there is a celebration that is bittersweet-like chocolate chips, only it won’t add an inch to your thighs-but also quite happy: my graduation.

I am, after four-and-a-half years as my father will gladly remind you, finally fleeing the embracing-some would say strangling-hold of Saint Louis University. I am also, now, gainfully unemployed. Oops.

No longer will I be using the phrase “full-time student” when I am asked my occupation. Instead, my occupation is now “not applicable,” which has the distinct sound of someone who isn’t really trying to get a job.

Truly, it would be awfully nice if a job could be wrapped up and placed under the Christmas tree. I would even jump up and down and maybe clap a little bit when I unwrap the pretty package. “A job? Just for me? Oh Santa, you have truly outdone yourself this year! Happy day!”

Sadly, the prospects of Santa coming with a job this year are rather dim:my parents always have a fire going in the winter, so Santa would burn up and die before making it to the tree. I certainly do not want to be the one held responsible for killing Santa.

Graduation, however, is a gift that Santa is not bringing me, but one that I am receiving just the same. There will be some rather unholiday-like tears, and perhaps more than a few stories told fondly about my past four-and-a-half years.

Stories about my college career will help to ease the pain of the passing onto this next stage of my life. Graduate school looms large on the horizon and, with it, a relocation that will break my heart. Stories of the past, replete with happy endings and tears of laughter, will certainly help me advance into my future.

As for finishing up this semester, and thus my college career at the undergraduate level, I can express confusion mingled with happiness and sadness and a little disappointment.

I am confused as to how the day of my graduation has come so soon. Is this some evil Christmas gift that I once asked for with no intention of ever actually receiving? I like college. I want to teach at the college level. What could have ever made me want to finish?

The happiness comes with the territory of having successfully finished a great run at a university. I will be a college graduate and my education is something that no one, ever, will be able to take from me.

I am sad to be leaving SLU. Though I send mixed signals about my enjoyment of the time spent at the University, I have more often than not enjoyed my classes and my friends. My deeply rooted disagreements with the administration aside, I have had a good go at SLU and will be sad to see its pretty flowers bloom for a generation of students to which I do not belong.

As for my disappointment, well, how could I not be disappointed? Everyone always stresses the joining of organizations on campus and truly “getting involved,” and without this newspaper, I would have been as uninvolved as possible. I am disappointed that I did not try harder to fit into that college mold, but I am, upon my exit, also glad that I stayed strong in the onslaught of stereotypes and maintained some semblance of individuality.

The scuffles and scraps that I have gotten into with administrators and professors at the University only further my personal education. I am what my native education program likes to call a “life-long learner,” and that includes more than simply the standard college courses. It is really more of a life-long life learner.

Looking forward to my parents’ home-and buying a Christmas tree that always, mysteriously, turns out perfect-and my graduation, it is difficult to believe that I could be any happier. A new stage in my life is about to begin, and despite all of the emotions flickering through my head, I can think of no better way to celebrate a new beginning than with family and friends gathered close by, and sharing stories of the past and hopes for a boundless future.

Andrew C. Emmerich is a graduating senior in the College of Education and Public Service.