Yay I love Christmas!

I have been insanely busy the past couple of weeks mostly doing Christmas-related activities. I don't think I can put into words just how much I love Christmas. Seriously. It makes me deliriously happy. Yes, yes I know-it's gotten too commercialized blah blah blah. I swear the complaints about Christmas becoming too commercialized are more annoying than it actually becoming more commercialized.

To me, Christmas is as commercial as you make it. I know it's hard when you walk into a mall, and it's all up in your grill (yes I just said that and no I can't get away with it) with the signs and the fake Santas and the elves and the music, etc. So the eff what? Look deeper. Look at the kids' faces that are getting their picture taken with Santa. Look at how hard the people around you are trying to find just the right gift for the person they care about. Look at the people dropping off gifts they bought for the Angel Tree or Operation Families First or a dozen other charities. The good stuff is there, people, you just have to look for it. Plus come on-pissed off high school kids dressed as elves? That's just plain awesome.

A small sample of things I love about Christmas:
- Getting to see my family
- Christmas cards from friends
- Christmas lights
- Eggnog
- Eggnog shakes from McDonald's (mmm....seriously)
- Christmas carols
- Hot chocolate by a roaring fire (or in my case, a heating vent)
- Cheesy Christmas movies/specials/HGTV and Food Network specials
- Christmas trees
- Christmas decorations
- My mom's cutout cookies (I can prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that these are the best cookies ever made in the history of time)
- People are generally nicer in my experience. I definitely am. Except for when I'm driving.

This doesn't even scratch the surface. I know I didn't put presents on there. Presents are a fantastic bonus of Christmas, but that's not really what it means to me. Whether you're religious or not, this holiday is about giving and loving and taking care of each other. It's okay-you can call me flaky or naive or whatever. I know I'm a little of both of those things. But I don't think it's wrong to be positive and hopeful that people really can, if they try, be nice to each other. What really matters to me is sitting with my friends at a Christmas party or with my family on Christmas Eve enjoying their company, not being able to stop smiling and knowing just how lucky I am to have them in my life. I hope everyone gets to feel the same way this year and not just at Christmas.

That being said, if I don't get an iPod Nano for Christmas, I am going to kill someone I swear to Baby Jesus. Just kidding, you guys. You shouldn’t swear to Baby Jesus.

Now, New Year's? That's another story. We will go into why New Year's sucks a giant nut later.

Oh and I heard there's some sort of debate about saying Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays or something like that. Look-I really don't want to get dragged down into this ridiculous argument, but I will just say this. If I go to a store and someone tells me to have a Happy Hanukkah I'm going to reply gleefully and with complete sincerity, "You too!" even though I am not Jewish because you know what? Being told to have a Happy Hanukkah is much better than being told to fuck off. Let's all gain some perspective here. That's all I'm saying.