How to prevail over retail

There is no better way to celebrate the morning after a holiday dedicated to marathon-style family gluttony than spending money in retail. As Americans, we are champion shoppers birthed out of the womb to hit the ground running toward a Black Friday sale. It has been hard-wired into us to take a second glance at every red discount sign we pass on the street. Sure, those burnt-orange argyle stockings are straddling the line between very fashionable and absolutely tasteless, but they are 50 percent off, damn it!

Since a good number of us that are putting ourselves through school actually work in retail, I find it a bit ridiculous that we casually wind up pouring our hard-earned money right back into it. Even those strong enough to resist splurging on themselves can be broken down by the urge to spend money on the ones they love. The giving of gifts has a huge importance in our culture and it is exaggerated tenfold around the holidays. You can say you just want to express how much someone means to you, but secretly you are their main opponent in a battle of out-gifting one another. They love you the amount of a brand new Nikon D90 digital camera, so god help you if you only love them back an iPod shuffle’s worth.

However, there is a way to end this holiday cage match. In a commercial world, it is easy to forget the power of a handmade gift. Something self-created doesn’t have to denote a craft project. It can be any number of things; even if it is as simple as spending time together.

I’m not asking you to make your girlfriend a multicolor macaroni necklace—unless, of course, that’s her kind of thing. What I am asking is that we reconsider what we find valuable. When reflecting on what you cherish most out of a relationship, it is not likely that you’ll choose the entire DVD series of “Arrested Development” that they bought you last winter (in all fairness, that may be the second most important thing, but it probably doesn’t hold the title of most important). We are creatures that remember moments, not objects. If we can accept this, maybe we can keep our cash-squandering to a minimum this season.

It is naive to say we won’t spend any money on items from retail and similar realms. That pair of concert tickets or sushi dinner will probably do the trick. However, for those who constantly nickel-and-dime themselves into debt, the construction of a handmade lower-cost present can be just as significant.

We tend to shy away from personal gifts because they are undoubtedly more time-consuming. Finding a dapper yellow coat at H&M and dropping 50 dollars on it could be done in a half-hour shopping trip. Racking our brains over how to make something by hand or find a new experience to share can take days, if not weeks, of contemplation.

But taking on that challenge is an expression of love in itself. Sure, getting creative is genuinely hard. But at the end of the day, we’re college students—in our prime for forming clever ideas. If we can come up with yet another thesis statement, essay or final project, we can definitely think of a gift that wasn’t purchased at the mall.

Where there’s a will, there is indeed a way. And it could be a way that won’t compromise your ability to pay rent on time next month. ?