1. Eggnog: Sure, you may tell crazy aunt Martha she smells like wet dog but at least you will feel good about it. If you drink just any drink the family may throw around words like alcoholic but if you generously partake in the eggnog then you’re just festive.
2. New hobbies: Tell them that this past semester you really got into meditation and must be left alone for hours to align your chi.
3. Noise cancellation headphones: Enough said.
4. Strep: let them know via email/letter/Morse code that you have come down with strep/laryngitis/ any throat condition and have no voice.
5. Story time: The more terrible college stories they here from you the better you will look. Take the time out to share the stories about your alcoholic roommate or your slutty roommate or even your alcoholic slutty roommate. You will look exponentially better in comparison.

Happy Holidays….

Unless you’re a Rockefeller descendant, lottery winner attending an in-state university on a full ride scholarship, you’re a broke college student. Get over it; besides the aforementioned nonexistent example, college kids are expected to be poor.

As December creeps closer, rent and food money are no longer the biggest issues. It’s holiday season, which means you’re obligated to buy people things. That, or suffer the consequence of being labelled a heartless bitch. Your choice. Just keep in mind that picking the latter means you’re a heartless, selfish bitch. But whatever, still your choice…

Anyway, as always, I’m here to show you the ropes. Here is your personal guide to avoid wasting booze money on Christmas presents to cool, cheap, unique gifts!

For your friends: Mix CDs. Even though your friends can probably find and illegally download any song ever recorded on the internet, not much beats the high school flavored nostalgia of a good ol’ mix CD. (If you need help filling gaps in your playlist, plug in some songs you irrationally assume were written about you and your friends).

For your mother: A drawing. You’re not an artist? Not even remotely problematic. Hand her your archaic rendering of something sappy (two different animals displaying their unlikely friendship perhaps?) and say it took you weeks to finish. Tell her it reminds you of your powerful, impermeable relationship; moms eat that shit up.

For your father: One coupon to take you fishing/golfing/something outdoorsy whenever he wants. This gift is thoughtful and also suggests a desire for father-child bonding. Don’t worry about following up on your promise; utilize the same techniques you used to get out of these events for the past 20 years. That is a last resort; hopefully after a while he’ll just forget.

For the weird uncle: A miscellaneous object. Pick up a strange, foreign object from a dirty street. Give it to your uncle. Make a wild claim about how the drummer from White Snake used the object to wipe the sweat off his ride cymbal. Casually add how vicious the bidding on eBay was to get it.

For your little cousins: Last semester’s textbooks. Wrap up the now outdated textbooks your school’s STUPID bookstore refuses to buy back. When your cousins rip through the wrapping paper, tell that those books are the stuff college kids read and reading them will make you a super genius. They’ll love it for like two seconds until they open the next present. Whatever, your little cousins are annoying anyway, good enough.

For the remaining (siblings, significant others, co-workers, etc): Tell them their gifts are on the way. Excessively complain about how Amazon miscalculates it’s shipping estimates. After you’ve open your stash of holiday presents from your “loved ones”, re-gift all the crappy stuff. Will anyone ever find you out? No, never. Everyone wins.

Using my guide, you’ll save enough money for another semester’s worth of nightly 2 a.m. pizza runs textbooks. Happy gift-giving!