Three-foot-deep snow, icy roads, and below freezing temperatures. Who doesn’t love a good northeast winter? I love it so much I moved to Arizona. For the past few months, I have been basking in the sun enjoying life. Going back home to Philadelphia has not crossed my mind, not even once. Lucky for me, I am a first-year college student who is currently relying on his parents and gets to go back home to Antarctica, I mean Philadelphia, for winter break. Yay.

While I won’t be able to feel any bone of my body due to the cold, winter break does bring one good thing. Christmas. The best holiday out there. The best tradition there is. The best day of the year. The best everything. That is unless, you give a bad gift. One of the hardest things in the world is finding a good gift for the people you love.  Now some gifts are easy. I can get my mom anything and she would love it. A few years ago, I forgot to get her a gift. Instead, I proposed my gift of a family bowling trip the next week, gave her a hug, and told her how much I loved her. We never went bowling. But that doesn’t make me a bad child, I bought her extra hugs last year to make up for it. My dad is the same way. And brothers are even easier to get gifts for. You don’t need to show any love, just money. For the past ten years I have slipped him a twenty. Merry Christmas.

Here is where things get tricky, friends. Every year, one friend in particular is hard to buy for. Mainly because he goes out of his way to get me an extravagant gift. I always feel like I must attempt to match his gift. Everyone has a friend like this. For me, this friends name is Raj. Last year shopping for raj was hell on earth. I waited to the last minute possible to go shopping. Like December 24th type of last minute. Great idea right. Wrong. There was only one thing left in most stores, mugs.

 So, I traveled from store to store, looking at mugs. Sport stores, music stores, any store you could name. I looked at neon green mugs, graphic mugs, gag gift mugs. For three hours I roamed the stores of multiple malls and the only decent gift I could find were freaking mugs! Now the thing about Raj is, he doesn’t drink tea or coffee. I don’t think he even drinks anything hot. The closest hot beverage he would use a mug for is warm milk. Yea don’t even ask. Anyways, after spending my whole Christmas Eve looking for decent gifts in stores, I finally found the Mack daddy of mugs. This was the most chaotic yet perfect mug I have ever seen. It barely even classified as a mug. The mug stood nearly a foot tall and was a dark red and green. Perfect for Christmas colors, but also Philadelphia’s sports teams, the Phillies and Eagles. I knew immediately it was the one for Raj.

Two days last was the big day. I had never been more scared in my life. To put in perspective how intense we normally go for Christmas gifts, out of the five Christmas’s before this, the lowest costing gift between us was $75! My mug costed $13.99 including tax. It’s the thought that counts though, right? I knew I was never going to hear the end of this. So, we met at our local coffee shop like we always did. Gifts wrapped in hand. Right away I knew I was screwed; his box was twice the size of mine. I made sure I opened his first and bought him a drink. Well, a bottled water, like I said the kid doesn’t drink coffee. What a psychopath. After some banter, it was finally time to open the gifts. Of course, I gave him a fair warning that it was a last-minute gift. As he slowly unwrapped my gift, he looked at me and laughed. My heart dropped. He kept laughing and told me to open mine. Quickly unwrapping my gift, I realized we both had gotten each other the same s***** mug. I couldn’t have asked for a better gift, what a perfect mug. I have had it for a year now and have used it twice. But that’s better than Raj as he broke mine by accident a month in.