For folks who love online shopping, tacky sweaters, and eggnog,–i.e. this editor–the month of December is absolutely wonderful.

However, one thing that almost always causes headaches for many is the act of buying gifts for loved ones. Last week, I went with my brother to some big box stores to help him pick out gifts for his nightclub co-workers as part of a ‘Secret Santa’ arrangement, as well as to buy gifts for our parents without them knowing.

As we walked along the perpetually-messy aisles of Marshalls, I felt a bit sheepish listening to my brother talk glowingly about his best friends and his deliberating on whether or not to buy mom another pair of earrings.

If you haven’t noticed from my columns, he and I are very different. Unlike my tonguetied, reserved self, my brother is very talkative and expressive—in spite of his poor oral hygiene from not brushing his teeth regularly.

He loves big parties and electronic music festivals and loud, late-night gaming sessions with his buddies. So of course his happy-go-lucky nature spills over to his gift-giving: he actually got mad at me when I suggested he just give his Secret Santa recipient a Visa gift card.

“Gifts need to be personal,” my brother moaned, as he agonized over which video game accessory to buy Work Best Friend #16 or so.

Don’t get me wrong; I love gift-giving too: there is something to be said about the joyfully mutual satisfaction of seeing someone you love enjoy the gift you gave them for Christmas.

But I also love saving time and energy, which is why I can’t understand why my brother goes to such lengths to spend hundreds of dollars on gifts for friends-of-friends-that- he-met-at-EDC-Orlando or distant Discord pen pals. I think it’s very sweet of him to do so, but it also sounded exhausting, which in turn made me reflect on why I felt that way. Is it really just my introvertness, or was I being unnecessarily grumpy and Grinch-like?

(Or was I simply hungry and needed a greasy Sbarro pizza slice to cheer me up? Yep, it was probably that.)

But I can never get too mad at him or anything— he did, after all, make a stop at Barnes & Noble to buy me one of those “mystery” books they wrap in brown paper with genre clues and a short description written on it in marker. We both decided that was the best option after I wasted nearly half an hour trying to settle on a book myself. (Growing older hasn’t changed my indecisiveness in front of a 2-for-1 paperback book sale, unfortunately).

Anyways, the moral of this story is to try and spend time with your loved ones when you can–not just during the holidays. My brother can be a lot sometimes, but I do admire how open and kind-hearted he is, and so I try my best to be like that in my own way, in a world where everybody judges a book by its cover.

(P.S: I bought my mom a necklace, and my brother bought a scented candle set for her.

For my dad, we split the bill on some over-ear Sony headphones, mainly so he can’t say that he “lost” them like the many pairs of wired earbuds he has had recently. But I’m sure he’ll like his gift: it’s already more useful than the drone I bought for him one year that he crashed behind Benedictine’s campus. Remind me to tell that story later, in this silly little column/diary/whatever.)

Feliz Navidad, y’all!

Andrea Gutierrez is the managing editor of the Bryan County News.