Christmas is always something magical: lights, festivities, the atmosphere. But there are sides to it that nobody talks about. As a 13-year-old who has lived through many Christmases, here is my experience.
Christmas has a lot of factors, and one of many is around gifts. For parents, this concerns finding gifts for their children and finding the money to get said gifts. But, for the children … well, that’s a different story. Over the past several years of my life, I’ve noticed a trend.
Every October (See? It was ridiculous to be thinking about Christmas when Halloween hadn’t even passed yet!) I start receiving calls, emails and texts from family members, some of whom I haven’t heard from for the past 12 months. Aunts, uncles, grandparents. I’m bombarded from all angles. There’s no escape. And every time I pick up one of those calls, check one of those messages or open one of those emails, I faceoff with the same question: What do you want?
Now, if I hadn’t caught onto the aforementioned trend or if I’d had an odd habit of not saving contacts … I probably would’ve been horrified. After all, who likes going on their phone and seeing that message, “What do you want?” As much as we all like to think of ourselves as the main character, I’m sure we’d all rather not be the main character in a murder mystery. So, using my incredible inferencing skills (maybe school has some purpose after all), I narrowed down the possibilities. If the person wasn’t a stalker, wasn’t a criminal and it wasn’t that automatic Bell message I’d decided to reply to the other day, then they must be someone I knew—a family member asking what I want for Christmas. For many kids this wouldn’t be a problem. Who doesn’t love telling family members what they want, right? Me.
I’ve always thought that people publish the weirdest articles online. Have you ever looked up things to do on a vacation? Most of the lists are exactly the same and, honestly, they could use some work. That’s why I thought I must’ve lost it when I found myself searching up “best christmas gifts for 13-year-old girls,” last year.
Before you judge, let me say one thing: I’m a Libra. Indecisiveness is kind of our thing. Anyway, a lot of the suggestions included makeup, new phones or—strangely enough—symbiotic plant and fish tanks (don’t ask). I scrolled through list after list, looking at hundreds of options, but I just couldn’t find any use for a “Women’s Fabulous Skinny Tumbler,” whatever that is. Yes, I know that these lists are made for parents, not kids, but I just needed some inspiration. I even ended up asking my parents for advice on what I should ask for. After a few weeks, my hunt had still come up fruitless. I was tired both mentally and physically at this point. Even though I knew there was no point in staring dismally at all of my unanswered messages, I didn’t know what else to do.
But, fear not: Though it has been too late for me in the past, throughout those many years I developed a method that might save many people in the future. Whenever I find myself stuck now, I think about my routine. It might seem crazy, but I don’t mean you should ask for a toothbrush or for some shampoo. Something that I really like doing is listening to music, so I asked for a gift card for Spotify Premium. Besides, I was sick of hearing the ads for it. They might not make Premium seem like a great deal, but if they make the ads annoying enough, we’ll pay almost anything to get rid of them. I also thought about what I liked to do with friends: I like to go Sima with them … so I asked for a ski pass.
A lot of people (including me) get stuck on gifts having to be a physical object such as a toy or some clothing. You might also think that a gift card isn’t meaningful enough. But when you’re on the receiving end of the gift, it really doesn’t matter what you get. A gift isn’t about the cost of an item. Now, returning to my strategy, I can’t promise that this method will work, but it’s definitely better than wasting weeks or months searching Google for gift ideas. In hindsight, maybe there’s a reason my family messages me about gifts so early on.
