Aside from summer vacation and Black Friday, the holiday season is my favorite time of year. A solid block from Halloween until New Year’s, when we get to wallow in the beauty of overpriced poultry, jarringly-bright festive lights, and more familial tension than a 12-hour “Jerry Springer” marathon. Really, though, what’s not to love?

Consider the simple goodness of Halloween: a holiday that began as a pagan method of ushering deceased relatives into the afterlife (including human sacrifice and paying homeless people to pray for your family members), and now consists of encouraging children to dress up like a comic book character and walk around parentless, demanding treats from strangers.

This is one holiday that has remained just as whimsical and traditional as when it first started. I mean, what’s the difference between eating a nutmeg-based “soul cake” that signifies a soul being freed from Purgatory and a chocolate-based Mars Bar that signifies an upcoming root canal? Only that whole “Purgatory” thing, but that’s pretty trivial in the long run. Overall, no one could find a flaw in children accepting candy from groups of masked strangers. When has that ever gone wrong?

Thanksgiving is a holiday that keeps on giving (pun shamefully intended), providing us with everything we love about the holiday season: family, good food, and historical turmoil. After all, the only way to celebrate a bunch of Puritans crashing their boat into an enormous rock and massacring 700 Pequot Indians is enjoying a slice of pumpkin pie.

Coming too soon after Halloween to manage any pre-holiday diet, Thanksgiving basically does the same thing to our bodies as the stomach-babies in “Alien”: explodes our stomach without so much as a heads-up and leaves us to suffer. The recurring (but never actually true) plan all of us hold close to our cholesterol-caked hearts is that we’ll try to eat healthier this year. This lasts until we actually begin eating, after which we usually find ourselves reclined in our chairs with the buttons on our skinny jeans screaming for mercy, as our Aunt Flo stuffs a fifth piece of pecan pie down her throat whilst claiming, “I shouldn’t; I’m on a diet!”

(Personally, I intend to follow the “Just eat as much as you want and have fun” plan. I’ll let you know how it goes after my imminent triple bypass).

Then comes the great grandiose of the holiday season: Christmas. We put trees inside, lamps outside, and sing holiday songs that will surface in our subconscious again during mid-April and refuse to disappear until next November. Christmas is like what would happen if all the other winter holidays were put into a blender and pumped full of steroids; you’ve got the forced family bonding of Thanksgiving, the sugary confections of Halloween, and the skinny-jeans-ripping meals of… well, basically everything.

Plus, the best part of all: PRESENTS.

Now, I know the whole Grinch spiel of “maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more,” and all that holly-scented jazz. We all do, having grown up with Christmas specials that shove peace on Earth down our throats with cries of “EAT SYMBOLIC HAPPINESS, YOU TINY ELVES!”

But, lets be real here. Presents are the only reason you remember Christmas at all. Years from now, we may not remember the hot chocolate we drank or the moonlit walks past the blinking house lights, but we WILL remember getting a copy of Call of Duty instead of Halo, and subsequently throwing our XBox across the house in righteous indignation and refusing to speak to our parents until New Years.

Ah, the memories of the digital generation.

The only downside of the holiday season, for me at least, is how FAST everything seems to go. You’re halfway through taking off your Halloween costume when your parents begin ordering a turkey. Three days later, the Christmas Lights Fairy visits all the good little houses and covers them in traffic hazards. And then, before you know it, all that’s left is half a pillowcase full of candy, a skyline of leftovers in the fridge, and that one neighbor across the street who keeps his lights up all year round.

So, this holiday season, try to appreciate each moment. Revel in your younger sibling throwing up eggnog all over their stocking. Giggle in delight as your great-aunt asks why you don’t just cut your hair, you freakin hippie. Suffer in contented silence through hours upon hours of sappy Christmas movies that make your mom cry. Enjoy it while you can.

And, to all my fellow Jews out there: Happy Hanukkah. See you all December 24 for Chinese food and a movie. Happy Holidays!