I don’t know if you’ve heard about it, but there’s this little thing coming up called “Christmas.” And just a head’s up — it’s going to be awesome.

I know, I know. It’s a cliche. It’s too commercial. You’ve grown to loathe most Christmas songs. You’re “Jewish.”

None of that means that you can’t love Christmas. I’m decidedly irreligious, so my relationship with Christmas is purely cultural, and mostly based on a strong attachment to gingerbread cookies, Christmas trees and twinkly lights. Nothing against Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or Winter Solstice celebrations — if there’s delicious food, smells and loud off-key singing involved, I’m all for it. December is just crying out for some kind of large cheerful holiday — a reason to get a break from school, to curl up warm and snug near a fire and ignore the foreboding darkness outside.

I’ve attempted to transplant this Christmas spirit to Stanford, with mixed results. Last year, a friend and I decided to drink eggnog and watch “Elf,” but, as it turned out, Bacardi and organic eggnog from Whole Foods don’t mix very well together. (In a word: viscous.) So we moved on to other forms of Christmas cheer, like margaritas, and another friend decided that one in the morning was the best possible time to play a rousing rendition of “Heart and Soul” on the piano in the SLE lounge.

Did I mention it was a Wednesday night in the middle of finals?

Anyway, my point is that the Christmas spirit can sometimes be taken a little too far. (Like when you wake up the next morning, look at your arm, and wonder to yourself, “Is that a bite mark?”) But here are a few tips for engaging in some wholesome amounts of Christmas cheer:

Memorize silly Christmas Songs

“I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” “Winter Wonderland,” “Let It Snow,” “Santa Baby.” Learn them, love them, belt them out to your sleeping roommates when you come back from Green at one in the morning. (All’s fair in love, war and Christmas.) Can you get any better than a song in which Eartha Kitt tries to seduce Santa Claus like Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy Birthday” to JFK? Give Lennon’s “So This is Christmas” a spin if you’re in a thoughtful mood (Seriously, so this is Christmas, what have you done?) And if your roommate hasn’t threatened to delete Savage Garden’s “Last Christmas” from your hard drive, you haven’t been playing it enough.

Put up Christmas lights

Nothing brightens up a dorm room like Christmas lights duct-taped to the wall. Unless you’re from the Housing Department, in which case I mean that “nothing brightens up a dorm room like leaving it in the exact same condition you found it in, and never allowing anything other than finest silk to touch the walls.”

Bake Christmas cookies in your kitchenette

Make them from scratch or just bake some store-bought dough — your fellow housemates will love you, the cookies will smell delicious and maybe you’ll undo some of the damage from the unfortunate “Heart and Soul” incident.

Put up a photo of Santa Claus on your door.

Pretty self-explanatory — who doesn’t love Santa Claus?

Give yourself a break on the presents and spread some international goodwill

Instead of waiting in traffic for hours and becoming increasingly irritated with the bumper stickers of the SUV in front of you, consider getting your friend a llama from the Heifer Organization (it will, incidentally, actually be delivered to a poor family in a developing country, but still — a llama!) or order a recycled gum wrapper purse online. It’ll be less stressful, you’ll do some good and you can tell your friend, “Oh, you got me a CD? I supported a family in a developing country who doesn’t normally get anything for Christmas. But, you know, yours is good too.” (Making your friend feel bad is, of course, just an optional accessory.)

But however you choose to celebrate the season, in John Lennon’s immortal words, “I hope you have fun.”

And also, that you won’t try mixing Bacardi and eggnog.

Sini is happy to accept Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, etc. wishes at Sinim@stanford.edu, as well as party invitations and llamas.