The highlight of my break, besides setting up my Roth IRA account, was Christmas.

The holiday food, the lit-up tree and the family reunions were all wonderful.

But as I watched my younger cousin gleefully open a book simply entitled "Trees" and comment ecstatically on what a wonderful gift it was, I knew something was missing.

My L.L. Bean bathroom caddy just didn't inspire the same excitement. It hit me like a brick thrown at 100 mph straight toward my face: I wasn't a kid anymore.

Christmas takes on radically different meanings depending on how old you are.

There's the Blissfully Innocent Version: A jolly, bearded fat man takes gift requests from every child on the planet. In one day he circumnavigates the world by traveling on a sled pulled by deer stopping to hand-deliver each present. He's such a badass that he takes time out for a few million snacks.

Then there's the Jaded Reality Version: My exhausted parents spend hours looking for gifts that can convey how much they love me and my siblings in an easy-to-carry CD. Christmas morning comes, we tear through the presents and lose most of them within a month.

The first version sounds better to me, and there are other reasons why la temporada Navidad can make me long for the halcyon days of my boyhood.

For example, no longer do I wake up on Christmas morning, shaking like Santa would if he was both laughing and a smack junkie waiting for a fix. He already shakes like a bowl full of jelly when he laughs, so that would be Shake City.

Also, I can't help but feel guilty unwrapping an exquisite chocolate orange knowing that many children would be grateful for just a mediocre chocolate orange.

But I'm making it sound like getting older is more horrifying than gallbladder removal surgery, and that's not true.

It's true that innocence comes with the wide-eyed wonder that makes everything, even things like bubbles or chocolate milk, seem like an intense religious experience. But it also comes with ignorance and naiveté that blind you to some of the other things life has to offer, besides making you very easy to trick.

For example, I saw my Grandmother during break. When I was younger, Grandma was a mysterious, affectionate lady with large jowls, but now she's an interesting, kind-hearted lady with large jowls.

The clothes I got for Christmas aren't a waste of a box that could've held Pokémon cards, they're thoughtful and useful.

The rest of break highlighted some of the other good things about being older.

I spent New Year's Eve with friends instead of watching TV with Mom and Dad.

I stayed up late into the night instead of waking up at 6:30 in the morning for school.

And now, I'm in the middle of a syllabus week while my high school-aged brothers are taking finals.

You can take the same approach to this week's cover story. Everyone out of fourth grader knows that professional wrestling isn't real the same way, say, English muffins are real.

But that doesn't mean we can't admire the deft physical artistry of the muscle-bound behemoths coming to town Saturday.

WWE teaches us that losing our innocence sets us free to do more with our lives.

It's only when we know those wrestlers aren't trying to hurt each other that we can go outside, give it all we've got trying to imitate their moves and hurt ourselves in the process.

Billy Wellock is a sophomore in the Division of Undergraduate Studies and is the Venues chief for The Daily Collegian. His e-mail address is waw5010@psu.edu.