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I haven't done any Christmas shopping yet. This situation would be horrific for many, leading them to run around town like Jessie Spano on caffeine pills screaming about there being no time to get everything done. For me, though, this isn't much of a problem: I always do all of my shopping on Christmas Eve, a method that I've refined over the last 10 years.
You see, when you do all of your Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve you eliminate important variables -- like caring about what you actually purchase; carefully picking out special wrapping paper and instead wrapping everything in black duct tape; questions as to whether you can actually afford the gifts that you haphazardly purchased; etc. -- that often make traditional Christmas shopping difficult. It's a streamlined approach to showing affection through consumerism. The biggest bonus, though, of doing all of your Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve is that the malls are fairly empty, the beautiful residue of everyone else in the country turning malls into the streets of Calcutta for the better part of the three weeks following Thanksgiving. I can pretty much move freely from store to store in the 30 minutes I've allotted myself to purchase gifts for a dozen people without the hassle of dealing with jerks that are trying to act reasonable.
John Danowski, unfortunately, is not on my level. In fact, he actually likes the mall during the Christmas rush:
Love the Mall at this time of year, a little tamer in NC compared to NY!
— John Danowski (@John_Danowski) December 17, 2013
I have not seen any reports of Danowski being injured in a Durham-area mall riot over XBox Ones . . .
. . . so that's a good thing.
MORE SEASONAL CHEER FROM JOHN DANOWSKI