It’s the first real snowfall of the season. You’re walking with your best friends at the Rio, as usual, cozy in your scarf.

Then you slip on ice and burn your hands with your overpriced peppermint mocha latte from Starbucks, and ruin your brand new $60 sweater from Urban Outfitters, which you could’ve bought at Target for just $20.

As you cry, stuffing yourself with your grandma’s homemade cookies, you realize that your expectations of the holidays don’t exactly meet up with the reality of them. Well, at least some…or most of them.

First of all, our “Winter Wonderland” is a light snow at night, followed up with a cold rain in the morning, turning our half inch of lovely snow into disgusting grey slush, and crushing our hopes of a two-hour delay, let alone, a snow day. Not exactly what you’d expect after listening to all the different versions of the overplayed song, which overtook all store stereos and radio stations over Thanksgiving break.

Now, let’s talk presents. What’s on your list? Xbox One? Gift cards? Cute new clothes? How about a new car? New socks it is! (Not the good ones.) Holiday themed pencils and Chap-stick, the kind you lose ten minutes later, fill your Christmas stockings. But seriously, where do those Chap-sticks go?  Is there a Chap-stick elf that goes around at night, rifling through your pockets and stealing those precious Chap-sticks?  Either way, they were a gift and now they’re gone.

*Cough Cough,* oh sorry, I’m getting a little sick *lights peppermint-scented candle.* Let me just lay down on the couch, under my peppermint-themed blanket, sucking on a peppermint-flavored cough drop, casually sipping my peppermint-flavored coffee with a peppermint candy cane sticking out. I hope you like peppermint. If not, oh well! You have no choice! It’s the holidays!

After last year’s dreadfully boring winter break, you tell yourself this will be the year that you go to the Bahamas or some cool indie ski resort. But let’s be real, the only place you’re going to is the fridge while watching your guilty pleasure on Netflix… Don’t lie to yourself, this is NOT the last episode of Dance Moms you will be watching tonight.

But hey, what would the holidays be without peppermint everything, grandma’s homemade cookies, overplayed music, and binge watching your favorite shows on Netflix?

Not the holidays that we look forward to every year.