It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Stressful travel, crowded malls, out of touch relatives — what’s not to love about the holidays? Fear not, readers, we’re here to help get you through this season with a list of extremely valid reasons to justify stepping back, taking a break, and recognizing that special someone who you may have lost sight of among the chaos of shopping lists and double-booked calendars: YOU!

You’ve had a solid year and now is the time to reflect back on all your work, accomplishments, learnings, and teachings. Pretty impressive! Sounds like somebody deserves a reward.

That said, here are five great reasons to gift yourself this December:

1. It Feels Great…Literally!
2. Your Family is Really Bad at Gifting
3. It’s Deal Season!
4. Because Rocketbook
5. You Deserve It

1 — It Feels Great…Literally!

Multiple studies have found that the act of giving stimulates the neural networks ignited when we feel certain physical pleasures, like wrapping yourself up in a comfortable blanket or eating a peanut butter cup (or five). Essentially, generosity sparks internal happiness.

On the flip side, there’s receiving. Who doesn’t love the excitement of opening a mysterious wrapped birthday gift or the unexpected appreciation felt when your friend picks up the check at lunch?

Well, good news, because if you combine giving and receiving into the same gesture, when you’re both the benefactor and the beneficiary, your heart and brain may elicit extreme joy! We’re not just talking about any joy here, we’re talking about that type of joy you experience on your first snow day in elementary school. Massive joy.

So go ahead and pick out that gift you’ve been eyeing all year. You can thank yourself later.

Tip: Choose a gift that enhances your day-to-day life. Working from home? Splurge for that fancy desk chair. Heading into the office? Grab some nice headphones for listening to music on your morning commute.

2 — Your Family is Really Bad at Gifting

We’ve all been there. You open up a present and realize that mom still is buying you novelty calendars, or your partner made the (incorrect) assumption that you’ll look great in overalls. You smile and say thank you, but are internally mapping out a route to the nearest donation center.

Family members always have the best intentions, but sometimes you need to take matters into your own hands. So, go buy yourself the cool record player that will bring you hours of musical enjoyment and, while you’re at it, you’re also going to need a new sweater to cover up those sweet bib buckles. Everybody wins (especially you).

3 — It’s Deal Season!

One of the unexpected pleasures of holiday shopping is that you can scope out all the “buy one, get one” and “75% off” promotions that seemingly every shop in the world is running to compete for your business- take advantage of it! You may not think it’s completely necessary to upgrade your HDTV by a few inches, but have you seen the latest Marvel movie in 4K yet? Totally worth it. Oh, and it sounds much better with a Sonos Soundbar, so throw one of those in your cart while you’re at it.

Tip: Take care of all your holiday shopping for early so you get your self-gifts as early as possible

4 — Because Rocketbook

Ok, hear us out on this one. Because you’re a genius and you likely already own a Rocketbook reusable notebook, you haven’t had to spend a dime on wasteful old paper notebooks in ages. And you can always put those savings toward another reusable Rocketbook product. Just think of how much you’ll have to spend on yourself in 2021!

Tip: Rocketbook is an easy way to share handwritten ideas or digitize lessons while working or teaching remotely.

5 — You Deserve It

Look, we don’t know that this is true. In fact, it may very well be completely inaccurate. But that’s between you and your conscience. You know what you did. And from our perspective, you did alright and deserve some extra presents this holiday season.

In all seriousness, you really should self-gift this season. Additionally, we’ll remind you again: generosity sparks internal happiness. So if putting your money or time towards a donation, or volunteering for your community, or taking a sumo wrestling class is what elicits that feeling, that totally fits into this category as well!

The message here is that however you decide to self-gift this season, take a moment to appreciate yourself and all that you do. You deserve it!