This might be a silly question but…
The popup window for the new version keeps showing up like… every half hour for me. It’s really irritating. I want to upgrade, but not until finals are over (don’t want ANY problems since I Scrivener for my law school note-taking software). How can I get rid of the box and still have the option to update in late December?
Go to Scrivener>Preferences>General and deselect “Automatically check for updates.” Or maybe change the dropdown to “monthly” so you’re reminded again in December, after finals. 
You can also click the “Skip” button, which should be available in that notice. This will dismiss the update notice and never show it again for that one specific version—unless you ask Scrivener to check for updates manually.