ALEXIS PRICE | OPINION EDITOR
On Black Friday, we hoped for deals from FAFSA rather than our favorite clothing stores. When we wrote our Christmas lists, we asked for VISA gift cards—keeping loads of laundry and Starbucks in mind.
We told our parents that we wanted a new pair of rainboots instead of the latest Sperry’s or Keds—since our current boots are nearly worn down by last year’s treacherous puddles on campus.
When we became college students, our Christmas lists changed.
Last year, as a first year college student, I asked for things that would easily fit in my cramped dorm room: Keurig cups for my coffee maker, Cards Against Humanity to keep us entertained on Indiana winter nights.
I even asked for new records to play when I needed a little de-stressing time during finals week.
I started asking for more money, coffee and even food. I asked for food containers to store all of the home-cooked leftovers I wanted to eat when Easy Mac got old.
Things like shampoo, toilet paper, slippers and socks—because somehow they keep disappearing in the laundry rooms—appeared on my list.
In general, I would like little extra money to order Insomnia Cookies and Jimmy Johns, or to take on late night C-Club runs with my friends.
I never realized the value of a simple gas card.
My grandparents deemed it necessary to have pepper spray with me as I travel from dorm to academic building to parking lot. But since I received this last Christmas and it proved its faults just a few days ago—when it busted and leaked all over my wallet, pants and the floor of my brother’s school—pepper spray will not find its way on my list this year.
Some of us, like myself, move into apartments.
The list then becomes a whole new one.
I started asking for things like Command hooks and throw pillows, more picture frames, hangers and a blender.
A shadow box—because I realized that all of the Instagram photos are not enough to hold every memory you have made here. A shadow box to put my first Butler basketball game ticket in; to hold the Johnny Depp signs my first friends at college hung on your door for my birthday. To hold the countless nametags my first-year resident assistant made.
I started imagining that the best gifts would be if I didn’t have to deal with my own insurance plan anymore, or file taxes.
I find myself wishing that my Christmas list could easily consist of that purple Barbie Doll Jam ‘n Glam Tour Bus I asked for in 2001, or the portable DVD player that was all the rage.
Over the years, it’s not that Christmas becomes less important. It’s just that the things I want become things that I need.
I need gas, hygienic products and caffeine. Ten years ago, I thought I needed Polly Pockets and G.I. Joe action figures—oh, how things change.
Sometimes our Christmas lists grow shorter, but the list of items we want to buy for our friends and our roommates, those grow longer.
And we finally realize what is like to ask for household appliances, socks and, jokingly, a little extra help to pay our bills. We realize what it is like to be an adult during the holidays.
I can only imagine how our lists will change when careers or children are added to the mix—but for now, bearing in mind that I cannot have my childhood back, I’ll just keep my college student’s Christmas list.
