I love Christmas. My college dorm room looks like Santa’s workshop, I keep an organized, categorized list of the people I need to buy gifts for and my Pandora has been on the “Mariah Carey Holiday” station since mid-October. I’ve seen just about every Christmas movie ever made, but my favorite isn’t a classic like “Rudolph" or “The Year Without a Santa Claus.” Don’t get me wrong, they’re great movies too. But, “Love Actually” is where it's really at.

Sidenote: Don’t read the reviews from Google. They’re wrong. It is not “literally the worst film of all time.” It is a fantastic movie and I will defend it forever.

Okay, I know, the fact that a teenage girl’s favorite Christmas movie is a sappy romance isn’t really a surprise. But it is more than a sappy romance! It has depth! I swear!

The movie starts in an airport, with a voice-over talking about why airports are a place full of love around the holidays. I’ve never actually been in an airport around the holidays, but I’ve been at a bus station in middle-of-nowhere Connecticut two days before Thanksgiving and I’ve felt the joy of being hugged by your dad for the first time in months and it is amazing, so I’d imagine airports are pretty darn full of love.

The movie follows nine stories of families, couples and friends, and intertwines them enough to confuse you the first time you watch it, but not enough to make you never want to watch it again to try to figure it all out. There’s the wholesome new romance between a man and a woman, the attempt to fix a crumbling marriage, the unbreakable bond between brother and sister, the innocent love of children, and friendships that have become family.

Think about that for a second. Think about all the different kinds of love, how there are so many different people in our lives, and how if we really try, we can find a way to love every one of them.

I think that every person is born with a certain amount of love inside them. Whether it comes from God or science, I guess I’m not one to say. But I know its there, and for a reason. You have love inside of you so you have love to give. You may not want to give your love away, especially in a world full of hate where you may never have been given a reason to. But if everyone could spend more time giving away love instead of evil, think about how great the world could be!

Okay, I’m not that naive. I’m not writing a letter to Santa asking for world peace. The world is always going to have hate in it, but you don’t have to.

Here’s my advice this holiday season, and for life I guess. I know you may not want to take advice from a privileged college girl sitting on her Martha Stewart sheets, but I’m smarter than a lot of people give me credit for, so I’m going to give it to you anyway. Fill yourself up so much with love that you’re bursting, so love is squeezing out of you in every word, in every smile, in every touch. I’m not saying everything you do has to be some big grand gesture, but hold the elevator door for someone, buy some flowers for your roommate, call your mom. Let the love seep out and you’re bound to feel it radiate back, from friends, family, boyfriends, girlfriends, strangers. It’s there. Love, actually, is all around.