When, in our last Perspective meeting of the fall semester, fellow columnist Cody Laplante pitched his column idea—that an inexpensive, thoughtful Christmas gift is always better than a thoughtless, yet expensive one—I was overwhelmed with the intensity of his holiday spirit. Shielding my eyes from his halo of tinsel and sleigh bells, I responded by coughing out a hoarse, “Bah, humbug.”

While my contemporary argued that the perfect gift is one given from a place of love to show you know the receiver, their interests and hobbies–something personal and one-of-a-kind that in being fiscal, showcases creativity and inspiration–I insisted that the perfect gift is always a speedboat.

To initiate Laplante into the cold, hard, sugar-plum-less reality of a consumerist holiday, I proposed an experiment in which we take to the streets and pit our gifting skills against one another’s, surveying random students to see which they would prefer: a loving, creative gift…or a fat stack of cash.

Our first specimen was junior history major Aaron Wendorf, who enjoys video gaming. Still warming up, Laplante had trouble thinking of anything crafty to get for a historical gamer. He surrendered a point to my idea of those top-of-the-line Xbox LIVE headphones that work just as well as the $20 ones, but are better because, you know, money.

In the next round, Laplante stepped up his game, asking Taylor Bogan, sophomore biomedical engineering major, about her hobbies and color preferences. Because she enjoys building things out of wood and the colors orange and purple, my adversary suggested buying her a plank of orange and purple wood.

“I think that would be really cool,” Bogan said.

As it was clear I would have to dig deeper into my completely imaginary bag of cash to compete with Laplante’s gift stylings, thus crushing his holiday naiveté, I suggested a $200 gift card. Yet, in a ruling that could only be a true Christmas miracle, Bogan couldn’t decide between Laplante’s thoughtful hunk of wood and my monies.

To give Laplante a chance at a tie, we approached sophomore kinesiology major Kary Beran, who, as her major suggests, likes to work out. Finding out her favorite colors are pink and blue, Laplante threw down a pretty solid gift idea: a personal pink and blue water bottle. Okay, but is it as good as a top-notch Adidas sweatshirt? According to Beran, the gifts would be on par.

Our findings, although from a sample size too small to hold up in the court of science, are thus: I win. Nanana boo boo, stick your head in snowshoes. However, it seems that although a thoughtful Christmas isn’t explicitly better than an expensive one, the former can hold its own against the latter. Therefore, I would like to try it out, and as an early present, give Cody an honorary tie in this dispute.

I won’t lie, it kind of warms the icicles of my heart. But I could still use a speedboat.