Christmas Eve, when I was six-years old, proved to me that there was something magical in the world.

I spent the entire night camped out by my front door, and when I woke up there were presents under the Christmas tree.

Considering I didn’t have a chimney, the fact that the sound of an opening door never disturbed my slumbers was a holiday miracle.

The next year at school, a legion of snotty-nosed brats told me the truth about Santa and shattered not only my innocent childhood soul, but forever ruined the holidays for me. It was that year that I learned an important truth about the holidays: it’s all about being fake.

See, the problem is that everybody talks about the spirit and how great it is.

Everybody gives presents and smiles, all the while thinking about how they can’t stand most of their relatives and how many of their presents they’re going to have to return.

I understand that there’s a certain warm, fuzzy feeling that comes from ice skating in downtown Chicago and sleigh rides and all that jazz.

But there’s a reason that feeling goes away. That magical feeling simply is not real. After all, aren’t commercials more responsible for promoting the “holiday spirit” than actual people?

At the end of each “Home Alone” movie did you really want to give your family members a hug and tell them that you loved them? Or were you really just thankful that you learned valuable lessons such as “how to make Joe Pesci eat it” and “reasons why you should be glad you weren’t a child star.”

People use the holidays as a time to buy presents for each other for a magnitude of reasons, but very rarely is it because they actually care about the person they’re buying lip gloss or whatever other items for on sale at Target.

Most likely you’re buying bulk chocolates for your grandma because it’s the time of the year where you feel obligated to, not because you legitimately hope that she enjoys a box of cheap, waxy treats.

It’s a good thing we don’t live in a state of “holiday bliss” year round and, once the decorations get taken down, we actually go back to a state of reality.

If you really care about somebody, get them a cup of coffee after they’ve pulled an all-nighter working on an essay for the class they hate the most. If you actually care about somebody, you’ll pick up their phone when some creepy guy they met once continues to call him/her and tell that creeper that your friend is not there.

I swear I’m not really the Grinch.

And it’s not because I’m cheap either.

I just choose not to let the calendar and snowfall dictate when I show that I care about people.

Unless you’re responsible for telling me that Santa doesn’t exist. Then I don’t care about you at all.

Katie is a sophomore in Communications