The florescent lights begin to glare on me. My palms begin to sweat. My face turns a deep shade of red. My breath gets shorter. My vision blurs.

Is it already holiday shopping again?

It seems just recently Thanksgiving was just around the corner, and before it had passed, Christmas music was already blaring in my favorite stores. In the Christmas spirit of selfishness and consumerism, the holiday season is rushed on us, the buying public, and somehow I always give in to it.

The decorations. The lights. The signs marking sales. It’s all too overloading to my senses. I try to concentrate on the task at hand, but the intrusive colors and Mariah Carey Christmas cover songs are too distracting – and too revolting.

Is this really the most wonderful time of the year?

Sure, there may be familial bonding and gifts of my own to receive, but the daunting task that lies ahead of me overshadows any holiday cheer.

If you’re anything like me, you find holiday shopping more stressful than all of your final exams if they were packed in one day. As I poke around the loads of useless gifts on sale, I wonder which of my friends is deserving of a fuzzy leopard journal or a bejeweled picture frame. Or maybe a pomegranate scented candle.

During my most recent shopping excursion, I experienced both the highs and lows of holiday shopping.

I searched through store after store, trying to find the perfect gift at the perfect price to match the many names scribbled on my Post-it note. Hordes of fellow holiday shoppers, who were already stressed out, crowded the stores, which did nothing to calm me.

I worked my way through paths of old women recklessly hunting through each aisle. It seems to me these women enjoy the holiday shopping process. I believe the hunt plays into their past primitive human instinct, which has been replaced with a consumer lifestyle.

But these holiday shopping hunters only make my experience worse.

They crowd my space and make me feel even more hysterical than usual. And if the actual shopping part isn’t traumatic enough, waiting in line just adds fuel to the fire. I suffer from complete buyer’s remorse, and the more time I wait in line behind these old women to check out, the more time I second-guess everything I’ve just picked up.

I end up deciding against most of what I was planning on purchasing and then have to go back to shopping.

It’s a vicious cycle.

In some ways, I lucked out on my last attempt in the shopping jungle. I found quite a few things I liked that were even on sale.

However, I bought those for me.

I think of it as a reward for the horribleness that is holiday shopping. As for everyone else on my list, still no luck.

I don’t remember it always being this hard. I remember when I could give my friends a cheap scented candle and that was enough.

Am I putting this imaginary pressure on myself? Do my friends even care what I get them, or if I even get them anything?

Of course they do.

I think the fact so many other stressed shoppers are with me adds to my condition. Perhaps stores need to create a more calming environment, rather than the cramped and hasty shopping situation I’m so used to.

The sad part is, I love getting gifts for friends. I love when they read my corny, hand-drawn card, and I love seeing their face when I give them exactly what they never knew they wanted.

After my most recent adventure, I came to a startling decision. It took a lot of soul searching, but I had to do it for the sake of my own personal health. Some may find it selfish, others might understand, but it’s what I had to do.

From now on, I only do friends’ birthday presents.

– Bobby Feingold is a freshman journalism major.