It is Saint Nick's day as I am writing this. It is Wednesday. I didn't even know it was Saint Nick's Day, because it is the middle of finals week for me.

So this is my present to myself, just to get in the holiday spirit.

I will not celebrate the usual way I would celebrate today. Instead, I will celebrate by taking care of myself and my room.

I do not have a big stocking in my dorm room. Instead, I will do laundry and wash all my socks. Some will inevitably be eaten by the dryer, only from a whole pair, but those single remaining socks will be my stockings. I won't hang them up, because I think that would be a little too dramatic. But I will appreciate them for the half-experience they are.

I do not have Saint Nicholas' fluffy beard as white as snow. It's Tempe. We don't have snow. I'll be lucky if it gets below sixty degrees Fahrenheit by the time I go to bed. But I do have hair on my head and a beard growing like a bush. So I will wash my hair and my face. And I'll comb through my tangled beard.

I will not eat gingerbread or ginger cookies. I don't have any of that, even though gingerbread sounds yummy. But I do have some chocolate cake in my fridge left over from my birthday. That will be the perfect treat for after another long day of studying. I will eat dinner first, because a diet of cake alone will make me sick and I can't afford to be sick this week.

I will not put my shoes at the front door tonight. My roommate might come in late and trip on them. The high-stress of finals week is not a great time to make enemies of people who sleep close to me. But I will clean them up and I won't kick them off and hit the wall, which has happened sometimes.

I will not get up early just to sneak a piece of candy from my stocking on the fireplace. Instead, I will get up early because there is so much I can get done after I get over the daily drama of getting out of bed and moving to the shower. Once I force myself to do this, the bed is less and less inviting until I can actually sit down and work on my final projects.

By the time you read this, it will be next week. Saint Nick's Day will be long over. The fall semester will be done. But the season of giving and preparing for the end of the year is still around. The love of others is just as important as the love of myself. That doesn't mean winning every argument or being rude. It means knowing how to take care of myself and finding little ways to celebrate every day.

And Saint Nick's Day gives me the perfect excuse.