👩🏻‍💻 Will The Real Jade Iovine Please Stand Up

I promise I’m not a gift guide

Well, well, well, if it isn’t the most wonderful time of year again. I’ve been in a serious dopamine drought since Lexapro and I started our conscious uncoupling, so naturally, my halls are already decked. The tree is up, stockings are hung, and the Christmas music is blasting. (Side note: if you’ve been waiting for permission to start playing Christmas music, consider it granted. LA people: 103.5 is already serving up the classics, and my dad has been obsessively fine-tuning this holiday playlist for weeks.)

And while I have been thoroughly enjoying lighting a fire every morning, referring to my holiday gift-shopping as “mood management,” and manically rearranging the ornaments on my tree every night like it’s a part-time job, I can’t shake a small pang of ugh. If you listen to the show, you know I’m Daylight Saving Time’s #1 fan—a deeply controversial title I usually keep under-wraps, especially around people with small children. Yet this year, DST has betrayed even me. It’s got me feeling jet-lagged and chronically disoriented. I’ve broken more promises to myself than I can count, I feel like I’m constantly begging for 5 p.m. or the weekend to save me, and honestly, I’m crawling toward the end of the year like a student avoiding eye contact with the teachers whose homework I definitely didn’t do.