You might have noticed that I really fancy this holiday season. No, really, I do. I appreciate the beauty of binge-watching all of Jamie Oliver’s Christmas shows with bloodshot eyes, only to improve last year’s dishes by decorating them with an additional sprig of basil. Although Christmas can feel like a burden, it is also a celebration of the highbrow you, who is allowed to get lost in difficult rites and frills.

Admit it: You fancy some highbrow trouble too. Sure, we could agree as a nation to just prepare a hotchpotch of traditional Dutch delicacies, mashing some potatoes and cooking some kale. Sure, we could sit our family down around a cozy table until the doorbell rings, after which we run off to the front door to cheerfully welcome the pizza delivery guy. Sure, we could, but we don’t, because we all derive some form of pleasure from our highbrow ventures. There’s even bliss in almost dying from Christmas stress, simply because it commemorates the biblical narrative.That’s why I was so happy to receive this year’s university Christmas gift. Not only did it usher the holiday season, its wine bottles were also a further embodiment of the joy of engaging in a highbrow venture. Hence, there hasn’t been a single wine bottle in history which simply described itself as ‘an alcoholic beverage made from fermented grapes’, but there have been plenty that have described their character, as well as the favorite restaurant of the seasonal worker who harvested the fruit for the wine’s aftertaste. This year’s gift description did not disappoint, by elaborating on how ‘charismatic’ the winery is and how the winery’s name, Evel, is the reverse anagram of Leve, the Portugese word for ‘light-weight'.Indeed, why settle for something easy if life can be difficult?