Here we are yet again, the time of the year where it’s not strange to drink eggnog or walk around as a mini pillow. But most importantly, we have our gifts! Oh, falalala, the iPods, TVs, video games and tablets. Grandma might send a hundred-dollar bill in her Christmas card, and you’ve finally finished the list of things you want and it’s ready to give to Santa Clause*. But wait! Holidays are about the cost of the gift and how many you get, and if you don’t get as many gifts as little Jenny down the street, you won’t be as cool and none of the other kids want to play with you. Because you’re five and that stuff is exactly what the holidays are all about.

But you’re not five anymore. Matter of fact, once you get older, people stop reminding you that the holidays aren’t all about that. It’s nice to get things; that’s something no one would disagree with. People plus shiny things equals happy people. Happy people plus money equals happy businesses. We all just want to be happy, right?

As we spend more and more, we forget that little message that Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman tried to subconsciously put into our small, malleable heads. It’s all about spending time. In a progressive society, technology works in our favor; people spend 22% more on sales online than in an actual store (which is saying they spend more than the $700 they spend around this time).

Time that is so precious. We look at the clock as if 2:20 will never hit and then barely have time to blink before we’re in the same spot again the next day. The past never feels like the present when you’re in the past. Time seems to not have a limit but each day we grow and soon it’s gone. That’s no reason to run down the street YOLOing, but it’s a simple fact we forget, not only around the holidays, but just in general. If God is your kind of thing, then you can say you’re here for a reason, if He’s not, you’re still here, shut up and be happy.

Let’s not let the stress the accompanies the holiday times get us down this year. People around this time are doing too much: eating too much, drinking too much, buying too much. Instead of worrying how much to spend for this person and what kind of gift this person is buying you, enjoy the snow (or lack thereof), buy an evergreen and throw some of those jingly things and a big bright star on it, and constantly sing some “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”. Any person who is only concerned with the price of the gift you get them is someone who has seriously lost sight of this time of year or a person that you shouldn’t be wasting your time. So don’t waste your money.

*DISCLAIMER: Santa Claus isn’t real.