The Tenth Post of Christmas: A Practical Idea (that lets you be a cheapskate and a procrastinator!)

This is an honest to goodness idea that I think would be both beneficial to everyone involved, and also let you postpone an unpleasant task till a much later date!

Hmmm, I 've spent the last few minutes trying to think of a good example of postponing something unpleasant and having it being beneficial to everyone. The only example I can think of is this: I used to work as the weekend custodian at an outdoor, yuppie shopping center here in Provo. One day, the sandwhich and custard shop was going to dispose of a huge ten gallon vat of used cooking oil/grease when the wheel caught on something and it spilled onto the sidewalk, thereby ceasing to be the problem of the sandwhich and custard shop but also my problem. (Related question: How on earth does a sandwhich and custard shop generate almost 10 gallons of grease? I don't know but it put me off the thought of custard for a while).

(this is a picture of some fat/grease cleaning device going to town on some grease. It looked just like this, except I had a shovel and a squeegee)

Here's what I decided to do: It was a cold day outside and I thought, rather than try to scoop up all of this liquid grease, why don't I wait for a bit and let it coagulate? So I put up some cones (in case people didn't notice the huge, yellow-gray oil slick on the sidewalk)(more accurately, it appeared to be and literally was a "fat slick") and sat back and waited. After a while, it thickened up (a little anyway) and was easier to scoop back into the bucket and wheel it away. Everybody wins! (Except I did have to scoop up lots and lots of grease. On the plus side, the kid whose fault it was gave me some free sandwhich coupons and also I got to tell this cool story!)

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So what's the big idea? Well, it's actually appropriate that the example story was about fat because the idea is all about Christmas treats that everyone buys, makes and shares with everyone they know. Whenever I go home for the Christmas holidays, there is an entire corner of the kitchen devoted to the piles of chocolates, fudge, cookies, marshmellows, Chex-mix, carmel popcorn, cheese popcorn, yogurt popcorn, candies, carmels, pretzels and whatever else has been dropped off at the door this year from the Johnsons, Howells and Browers. (I think soon people will just start buying bags of really expensive sugar, or really fancy butter).

So I thought, rather than having one more thing on your list of things to do during the holidays, and also add to your friends and neighbors collective, ever expanding love-handles, why not 1) get a nice card (you usually do this anyway). 2) Write your holiday wishes and include 3) a promise that their expected Christmas treat will be postponed until a time when they will really enjoy it and then 4) pick a month somewhere down the road when you actually will go to the trouble of dipping those pretzels, baking those cookies or picking out that fancy butter. And that's it! Oh, and then 5) when May rolls around, you actually have to follow through and go do those things and drop off their treats.

I don't see a down side to this plan. Nobody gets any gifts from neighbors in May (or June, or pretty much any time other than Halloween and then you have to go and ask for them), so you know they'll appreciate having only your tasty goodness to savor. You also have one less thing to worry about during the holidays and one less thing to spend money on (not that money is easier to come by later . . . ).

Also, your neighbors will definitely remember it forever if you followed through. You'll stand out even more among all of other neighbors competing for their love and affection (that's the real point of all this isn't it). And finally, if things get busy and you just happen to forget to follow through . . . well, who's going to remember anyway? In December they think, "Oh that's a nice gesture," and never think twice. If you do remember, why that's double the brownie points! And speaking of brownies, I hope the Howells made some this year because man, they do not skimp on the mint chocolate chips.

(I added an extra good picture of brownies to take your mind off that picture of the fat and oil spill clean up earlier. Sorry about that.)