As the holiday season quickly approaches, our hearts grow cheerful and our wallets wider in order to ring in the happiest time of the year. During these festive few weeks, don’t be surprised if you’re able to check off every number below from your list of holiday accomplishments, failures and things you just probably shouldn’t do in the first place.
1. Tell people that Thanksgiving is your favorite holiday, which happens to be an outright lie because your favorite holiday has always been and will always be Christmas with Halloween coming in as a close 2nd.
2. Pledge your help in the kitchen before realizing how much work actually goes into cooking a great Thanksgiving meal.
3. Make a formal declaration about all the homework you're planning on doing over break and then never even open your backpack.
4. Wimp out on Black Friday shopping on account of your fear of being trampled.
5. String the lights and put the inflatable Santa on the lawn WAY TOO SOON.
6. Promise coffee dates to all of your friends back home over break, meaning you'll basically be hopped up on caffeine the whole time.
7. Justify the sudden explosion of your shopping habits by claiming you're just doing your part to stimulate the economy. It's selfless, really.
8. Feel "basic" as you purchase either a PSL or a peppermint mocha and proceed to internally defend yourself against all the haters.
9. Prematurely draft your holiday wish list, making sure to include a footnote explaining that a) the items are nonnegotiable and b) you would like to be present for the purchasing of each item to ensure maximum satisfaction.
10. Play in the snow because you think it'll be fun, but all you're really doing is getting snow down your pants and in your socks.
11. Watch all of SNL's holiday sketches, specifically the "Seenta Claus Get Down" sketch featuring the musical stylings of Taylor Lautner.
12. Agree to participate in a Secret Santa gift exchange even though you're not exactly sure where you're getting the money to finance such expenditures.
13. Put in the effort to plan an extravagant holiday party and realize that your friends would rather sip on some beers in the dark while Elf live-streams from your laptop.
14. Lust over every single holiday decoration you see in shop windows.
15. Remind your Jewish friends that you "like them a latke."
16. Follow your Christmas movie marathon itinerary to a tee until you get bored in the middle and remember that this happens during every movie marathon you have ever participated in and is definitely not a new thing.
17. Try to construct a gingerbread house and end up with a shack somewhat resembling an outhouse.
18. Remain ignorant in regards to the story of Hanukkah even though your Jewish friends have told it to you approximately five million times.
19. Make up alternate lyrics to "Jingle Bells" because Batman smelling and Robin laying an egg are old news.
20. Take a picture in front of a giant Christmas tree and immediately post it to Instagram where your followers will begrudgingly "like" it even though it's the 17th Christmas tree picture to appear on their feeds in the last hour.
21. Plan the most romantic date night possible and then remind yourself that, sadly, cuffing season has failed you.
22. Put thought into who you want to share a New Year's kiss with even though you know you're going to end up tipsily smooching whichever random guy happens to be standing next to you when the ball drops. What a lucky man.
23. Make elaborate New Year's Eve plans but somehow end up sprawled out on your friend's sofa while boys you vaguely know from high school play beer pong in the next room over.
24. Act on your resolution to get in shape for about 2 weeks...
25. ... Until you bag the entire operation in favor of eating leftover Christmas cookies.
