Does it pay to prefer present procrastinational proclivities?

It's November 4. According to a recent survey by Rasmussen, 23 percent of those surveyed have started their holiday shopping.

If anybody would ask me that I would conclude that they have zero knowledge of my outstanding present procrastinational proclivities! Holiday shopping? Me? Seriously? I haven't even thought about taking down the Halloween decorations, or pulled out the winter coats, or boots or any of that stuff that we will all need when the snow starts to fly.

For a Northlander, it just doesn't seem right to shop for Christmas presents until you get a good foot of snow on the ground. So that winter that we actually didn't get snow until January? No Christmas presents at our house!

Okay, I'm kidding about that. But I did hold off until the last possible minute and didn't enjoy being amongst the frenzied husbands buying vacuums and towels for their wives' Christmas presents. Okay, I'm kidding about that too, because I don't actually remember any of it, because I was in a frenzy myself. But I do remember the date: December 23. I probably won't do that again.

But, when you have big holidays in the two preceding months leading up to Christmas, the point of being too enthusiastic about shopping for Christmas gets lost on me. I mean, I was fixing Halloween costumes 10 minutes before the kids went out the door. Those pumpkins the kids carved the DAY BEFORE Halloween? They're going to sit on the front step until they start to stink!

And even though nobody but the turkey gets "dressed up" for Thanksgiving, it's still a family thing with lots of food and plenty of visiting. Our tradition is to start asking at those Thanksgiving "stuffings" if anything really wants anything for Christmas.

And you know what? Seems like there are fewer and fewer wants or needs. It's a struggle to get a Christmas list out of anyone. When I was a kid, the Christmas list was a mile long. And we waited and waited for what seemed like MONTHS to get that Julia doll or the new Tonka truck. Now, if someone wants something, they go out and buy it for themselves. And sometimes they will purchase those things just days before Christmas, and I have to return the thing that I purchased for them that they decided to purchase for themselves...grrrrr!

So you see, most often it pays to prefer present procrastinational  proclivities.

Other than the fact that "procrastinational" is not a word, that's my excuse for not being among the 23 percent, and I'm stickin' to it!

Dawn