Some of these things may or may not have happened to me this year or in years past.  The names have been changed during this recreation in order to protect the innocent or just the stupid guilty.

1.  Waiting to shop until the last minute is never a good idea, you won’t be likely to get what you want and there’s no time to bargain shop if you wait too long.

2.  Don’t have your kid open the best gift first, if you do this the other gifts will not make any difference and will most likely not get the attention they deserve.

3. Don’t leave too late for the Nutcracker performance, especially if you’ve scheduled to see it two nights before Christmas, you will no doubt run into all those that have waited to shop until the last minute while you’re driving on the freeway and your once nice dinner that you had reserved at a premier restaurant in Seattle, will turn into a drive thru experience you’ll never foget at a Jack In The Box in the middle of Airport Way.  You’ll run into some intersting characters there but it will lack the luster that an earlier departure could have afforded at a classier joint.

4.  Don’t waste $20.00 on a relative that doesn’t appreciate you throughout the year, they won’t appreciate your gift, and you will be standing holding the sad bag.  :0(

5.  Did I mention not to wait til the last minute to shop?  If you do, you will be up until 3am Christmas Eve wrapping gifts and that doesn’t make for an easy awakening if you have kids that get up around 8am to open presents!

6. Don’t wait til the last minute to get pictures taken with Santa, you will realize that there were most likely other things you put off til the last minute as well, things that take prescedence over a photo op with the big guy.  Which will be sad in years to come, when you have no pic to look back on.

7.  Don’t drink too much, it will just make things difficult in so many ways.

8.  Don’t forget to buy for the dog, or he may leave you a present you don’t want to happen upon while wearing your socks in the nice living room.

9.  Don’t depend on some waiter from Thanksgiving at C.I. Shenanigan’s in Tacoma’s Ruston district to be accurate about the restaurant’s offerings for Christmas Eve.  Even if the guy says they are having the Christmas Dinner buffet, double check with the manager or you could be holding the sad bag and eating finger food next door at the Ram.

10.  Don’t offer to make Christmas dinner all by yourself, you will be too exhausted to eat and most people will not show their appreciation for all of your hard work, unless they themselves have ever prepared such a spread, they do not realize the work that goes into such an event.

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