Your Daily Boost – Episode 653

Jonathan Jones
Dec 10, 2025
3 min read

The Annual Holiday Scheduling Crisis (Now With Inflation)

There’s a special kind of chaos that shows up this time of year — the kind where time and money join hands, lock the doors, and tell you they’re not coming out until January. And somehow you still have to shop for gifts, attend parties, remember who you forgot to buy for, and pretend you’re not quietly negotiating your own sanity like it’s a hostage exchange. I don’t know who designed the holiday season, but it definitely wasn’t someone with children, coworkers, in-laws, friends, pets, a job, a budget, or a pulse.

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The Holiday Calendar Is a Trap (And We Walk Into It Every Year)

There’s something deeply comical about the way December pretends to be a normal month. It has 31 days on paper, but in real life it has…maybe nine usable hours total. Everything else is already spoken for. Holiday lunch. Work dinner. The kids’ “quick” program that lasts long enough for you to question your spiritual beliefs. A white-elephant party where someone inevitably brings a gift that should have been left in 2006.

Even scheduling one thing feels like plotting an international summit. You open your calendar and suddenly you’re trying to coordinate seven competing jurisdictions and a coalition government. I love how we still act shocked by this — as if last year wasn’t the same circus, just with better snacks.

Kids Don’t Write Christmas Lists Anymore — They Draft Funding Proposals

Remember when kids asked for toys? Cute, simple toys? Yeah, that era is over.

Kids today hand you lists that read like they’re launching a tech startup. Half the items require venture capital. The other half require a congressional budget hearing. When I was a kid, the expensive gift was a bike. A bike. One thing. Now kids are out here requesting gaming rigs, phones that cost more than mortgages, and “experiences” that sound like they were designed by the Tourism Board of Narnia.

And you can’t even blame them! The world trained them for this. Every ad says: “You know what your child really needs? A device so advanced it requires a software update every 14 minutes.” Meanwhile, you’re calculating the ROI on Legos like you’re presenting to the board.

The Gift-Giving Economy Runs on Guilt, Guesswork, and Unexpected Shipping Fees

Gift-giving is supposed to be thoughtful. It ends up being logistical improv performed under financial duress. Even when you know exactly what to get someone, the universe adds a little spice:

Out of stock.

Delivery delayed.

Only available in a color not found in nature.

Suddenly $42 more expensive than yesterday for reasons no one can explain.

Then there’s the internal monologue:

“Is this meaningful?”

“Will they use it?”

“Will this reveal that I don’t actually know them as well as I thought?”

“Is there a non-zero chance they give this away next year?”

Honestly, the only people who shop confidently during the holidays are toddlers. They see something shiny, hand it to you, and walk away with their self-esteem intact.

Experiences: The Only Gift That Makes Sense Anymore

Here’s the plot twist: The only gifts that consistently land are the ones that don’t require batteries, assembly, or a second mortgage.

Experiences.

A meal.

A trip.

A day together doing something no one had to Google a warranty for.

Because at some point you realize the holidays are basically a blender made of scheduling conflicts, receipts, and mild emotional exhaustion — and the only way to beat it is to choose something simple. Something human. Something that doesn’t show up on a spreadsheet. Experiences don’t clutter your house. They don’t break. And they don’t arrive late because of a “weather event” that suspiciously only affects the warehouse holding your package.

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