How to Prepare for Christmas and Survive Until Next Year

Christmas is coming! Panic is unbearable, our nervous brake like the thin and yellow leaves dead all over our gardens. But no, relax; if you plan ahead, and if you hideously sedate your in-laws before Christmas Eve, everything will be all right.

   Do not think in your charming ingenuity that it is too early to dig in the storage room, kill a couple of spiders and face the horror of the last years Christmas decorations. You will have to untie the nuts of the lighting wires, so go for it now. Are you the kind of new wave person who chooses decoration themes? If you are, decide now, see if you can use something from last years and write down what you have to buy.

The secret for me, a rather visual person, is to write everything down, make lists of all the things I need to do. Lists help me a lot, if I do not loose them in the crazy speed of the Holidays.   So, let’s make lists like crazy. You already have one for the decoration you have to buy. Good, now make one about the guests you will have invading your home. And another one with the lucky persons who will receive presents from you, and what you will buy for them. You have to make a list of the apparently stupid accessories you will need to save you from a disaster, they are important. And go to the store and buy them now, do not collect the list proudly as you wrote a memorable book. Buy plenty of batteries, a tree mat, extension cords, timers, remote controls and switches for the health of your decorative items and your Christmas lights. Make a list of the wrapping suplays, paper, tape, scissors, and wrap the gifts you already bought (what? Didn’t you buy anything yet? Go, now!). Buy your


Holidaycards, write the usual stuff and have them ready, you’ll have to send them the day after Thanksgiving.