While you’re all still recovering from that sugar rush (hopefully not hangover) from a Monday night spent wide awake watching a horror movie marathon on AMC, or perhaps scaring small children and candy bag-snatching, I’ll tell you a little secret: The holiday season is here. Doesn’t this happen every year? You wait around in the dog days of summer for the cool weather to finally come, anticipating that special day of Oct. 31and then WHAM! November! Soon Thanksgiving break will be staring you in the face. Then it’ll pass and Christmas will arrive. You’ll be eating free candy from October all through to February. YIPPEE!!!

But have you ever considered how horribly bleak the winter months would be without holidays to look forward to? Without the heartwarming atmosphere of what’s known as the season of giving, we’d all be sad and moping, wishing our feet weren’t frozen. It may be different for everyone else, but for me January through April are the slowest, most depressing months due to the cold, cloudy weather and minimum breaks from school. I couldn’t imagine suffering the same during November and December as well.

But how did watching “The Shining” as a family, singing “Feliz Navidad” in fake Spanish, and enjoying a “Twilight Zone” marathon while sipping Shirley Temples become highlights of each year’s end? Who knows! They’re just silly traditions that brighten up the winter months. After a year’s worth of constant changes it’s nice to come together and celebrate the same way I did as a child.

I’ve never purchased any gifts at all and you wouldn’t catch me dead in public on a Black Friday. Everything that I give is handmade. For birthdays I typically paint an elaborate picture based on the recipient’s interests. But it seems as though the holidays somehow turn simple cloth and wire scarecrows and gingerbread ornaments made of clay and cookie cutters into cherishable gifts. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas simply give me the opportunity to become a bit childish again by encouraging me to be artsy-crafty. And why pay for everything when you can create gifts twice as special with whatever art supplies you have lying around the house?

Putting more craftsmanship into a present allows me to avoid that madhouse known as a mall, and breaks the constant cycle of commercialism. Holidays are meant to brighten up everyone’s spirits. If you celebrate them at all, don’t ruin them by stressing about what expensive gifts or top-notch decorations you can buy. Keep it simple, but keep it special.