T-minus 22 Days

Today I received the email at right from Porsche USA hocking some of their logo'd merchandise for Christmas. What caught my eye, however, was the scary subject line warning me about "Last minute" gift ideas.

Perhaps I am betraying my own time management techniques here, but since when does three weeks before Christmas constitute "last minute" shopping? This isn't the rant of a gift-buying procrastinator, either; in fact, I'm almost done getting all of my presents.

So what, then, represents true "last minute" shopping? I would suggest that any shopping done in December that takes place on a two-digit date starting with a "2" is truly cutting it close. In the interest of even more clearly capturing the spirit of giving represented by those who run it down to the wire, I suggest the following labels for those final five six days:

Dec. 20: "Last-minute Shopping"
Dec. 21: "Time-daredevil shopping"
Dec. 22: "Over-confident-in-one's-ability-to-find-something-not-sucky shopping"
Dec. 23: "Dude,-you're-getting-a-gift-card Shopping"
Dec. 24: "You-obviously-don't-care-or-have-been-in-a-coma Shopping"
Dec. 25: "Where-did-you-get-that-thing-7-11? Shopping"

And buying something after Christmas for out-of-town friends and planning to blame the mail for the late delivery? It's wrong, just so, so wrong.