The temperature has started to drop, and winter coats are being brought out from the back of our closets. The effects of Thanksgiving dinner are beginning to wear off and Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales have commenced.
The holiday season is quickly approaching.
Feasts will be had and families and friends will get together to celebrate any holiday that they choose. Christmas music will be blasting in every store, snow will cover the ground and all of the Grinches and Scrooges will loudly proclaim how much they hate this time of year.
The stress behind wondering if the gift we gave is good enough is probably the worst.
This time of year is filled with stress and frustration; packages are delayed or lost, parties are planned for where everything seems to be going wrong and gifts have to be picked out, wrapped and given.
The holiday season is also the season of giving where we spoil our loved ones with gifts that they don’t need. As a college student, I find that these gifts are often purchased with money that we don’t have.
Somehow, even with empty bank accounts, and maxed out credit cards we find ways to purchase gifts for all of our friends and family. The strategic budgeting plans that help satisfy our need to give are an amazing form of art.
Some people have a natural talent for it. Others have put in their blood, sweat and tears for this season, preparing every day for the past year like they were training for the Olympics.
A friend of mine was so successful in this that when she was planning out what to buy for gifts she decided to buy concert tickets for a Justin Bieber concert at Madison Square Garden. Her holiday budget was so intensely precise and specific that she was able to spend hundreds of dollars on tickets for a Justin Bieber concert for her and her Belieber friends.
The detailed allocation of her funds had allowed her the ability to spend that large sum of money on gifts.
This amazes me.
I currently have not reached that level of skill. I am usually lumped into the group of people who ends up giving everyone homemade gifts because I would rather buy groceries than buy a gift that the receiver may not like.
Homemade gifts are usually very nice and have tons of love and personalization included in them. My homemade gifts are not so elegant.
I normally start with a creative idea, but that idea is often too creative for real life. I then end up with an item that is covered in paint and glitter and looks like a 5-year-old did it.
I am so ambitious with my homemade gifts that I want them to be super awesome conversation pieces. They do end up being conversation pieces, but I don’t think that I can say that they are awesome. But it’s the thought that counts, right?

SARAH BARTKOWIAK
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