BY SHAYNA DEMICK
Co-Managing Mosaic Editor
The holidays are here and you know what that means? Lots of random wish lists will be created consisting of items that you don’t really want and will never actually use.
Like past years, these gifts will likely collect dust until you’re guilted into using them. While you sit by your lonesome and perform some much-needed self-reflection about these unused items, I’m going to teach you how to make a proper holiday wish list so this problem is eliminated once and for all.
My holiday wish list will be the blueprint for your wish lists, ensuring that your friends and family aren’t wasting their precious time and money on you this year. Because seriously, did you really need that Google Home? You haven’t even used it since you moved into your apartment because you couldn’t figure out how to connect it to the Wi-Fi so you proceeded to unplug it and stick it in a drawer. You used your GoPro on vacation ONCE and lost it before you could even upload the footage. You need to be more responsible but most importantly, more realistic in your gift requests.
If I were asking for gifts this year–which I’m not, because I am extremely gracious and minimalistic–, I would ask for things that I actually need.
Here is my totally realistic 2022 holiday wish list:
I want…
- My cat to let me pick her up without clawing at me or crying for help. I am extremely clingy with animals and it frustrates me that my cat will lay on top of my face but not let me hold her. I just want to rock my full-grown cat like a baby, is that too much to ask?
- To never take finals again. I hate exams and I would rather write a 20-page paper than take another final. I can write an essay in my sleep and can’t study for finals whether I’m awake or asleep. I was unfortunately not gifted with this ability.
- To be a good test taker. However, this gift is optional if I am given item number two (see above).
- Vegan food to taste good. I’m in too deep with this whole vegan thing but I’m really starting to hate the texture of vegan food. Tofu tastes like a soggy sponge unless fried and vegan eggs taste like the mung beans that they’re made with. If it tastes vegan, there’s a problem. Marketing food products that will aggravate a hungry vegan is cruel and unusual punishment.
- To stop shopping for groceries. I would like my food to magically restock itself so I don’t have to make the painful three-minute trek to Newark Natural Foods every Sunday. It’s a hard life.
- People to validate me more. I could just practice self-love but I think it would be more fun if my friends and family could just remind me how cool, smart and funny I am. It’s an easy gift that saves me the hefty cost of weekly therapy appointments.
- Rainy Tuesdays to come to an end. My Tuesday/Thursday classes this semester had significantly lower attendance than my Monday/Wednesday/Friday classes and I blame the Newark weather. I didn’t want to go to class in the first place and the rain felt like the universe telling me to stay in bed and continue my precious beauty sleep.
- Everyone to think that I’m funny. If you’re not laughing out loud, that’s a problem. I don’t pride myself on my personality but I pride myself on my humor. When my beauty fails — which it obviously won’t, but let’s imagine — my humor must persevere *cue laughter*.
Happy holidays and I hope that you have had a valuable self-reflection session. Please go find your GoPro and plug in your Google Home. Unrelated, but can someone tell me how to connect my Google Home to the Wi-Fi? Thanks!
