Separating the Men from the Boys

The Night Before Christmas. It’s a steely divide. Not between non-believers and believers because these days countless people celebrate Christmas as essentially the pagan Winter Solstice celebration that it once was. No, Christmas separates planners and non planners. This isn’t to say that planners don’t find themselves scrambling for a gift alongside non planners. But the chances of certain self described “anal retentive” people rushing to the store the night before Christmas to purchase more than one gift? Slim or rather, absolutely NONE. On Christmas Eve, I could give every shopper in the mall over the age of 25 the Pixie Personality Quiz and I’m fairly certain 80% of them would say they’re great at coming up with brilliant last minute solutions to save the day. These are people I probably dismissed as slackers back in high school, but who now come to my aid when I’m in a babysitter pinch for an emergency room visit.

The plan ahead types for the most part are Classics (SJ), Organic Structures (NFJ) and Smart Structures (NTJ). Together they make up about 60% of the American population. We feel relaxed after things are done. I do things for Christmas a little earlier every year because I’m always hoping to relax a little more when the holiday actually arrives. I spent one Christmas Eve wrapping all night and it was crap. I want to be playing board games and drinking whiskey laced egg nog and pretending I know how to enjoy myself doing nothing; not searching for another roll of Scotch Tape or trying to make the last piece of wrapping paper cover a box twice it’s size. 

I often wonder whether non-planning types think we planners harbor a superiority complex and if I’m honest with myself I would say a little bit. I mean, you certainly come across a lot more put together when you’re able to give a gift to someone on Christmas Day without saying, “It’s on its way!” while shoving a printout of what you purchased the night before online into their hands. Plus, why else would non-planners who send you gifts after the holidays always make sure to say how the gifts were sitting under the tree before Christmas but they just could never get to the UPS store.

But, superiority is NOT why I buy gifts ahead of time or try to do so. I detest smugness because nobody’s perfect. The first reason I do it early is that I really like coming up with ideas for presents for people that I know will make them happy. If I wait until two weeks before Christmas, I lower the probability I’ll hit some good bulls-eyes with my gifts. The second reason, as I said above, is relaxation. Uber planners like myself do things ahead to relax later. Non planners relax now and stress later. Or maybe they don’t stress at all because they don’t care. And that’s fine with me as long as their non planning ways don’t interrupt my need to have it done in advance so I can relax even before the holiday itself.

In a way, a lot of things I do ahead of time are done so I can re-experience being a kid again. Nothing beats that feeling you have when something just magically appears with no effort on your part. Christmas was pure joy as a kid for me because the only requirement I had was to be good AHEAD of time so Santa would bring me presents. A relatively simple task for a little girl who always made her bed. And it’s not just Christmas I do ahead so I can feel taken care of again, it’s little things I do everyday like prep the coffee before going to bed so I touch a button and coffee magically appears when I’m pooped in the morning. It reminds me of life when I would just wake up as a college kid at 10am and coffee would already be made by the coffee fairy. Logically I know I’m the coffee fairy but it makes it easier to pretend I’m not when 12 hours separates my act of prepping the coffee from pushing the brew button.

Going back to non-planners disrupting my planning ways. There are perils of advance planning. Conditions on the ground can change and your best laid plans are in ruin or at least you’ll be spending a lot of time at the UPS store one day. Three weeks before Christmas, my brother-in-law—a likely Fun (SP)—queried my in-laws about whether they want to stop exchanging gifts this year and start a more practical secret Santa. A brilliant idea, I thought, if only he’d mentioned it in November before I’d already bought everyone’s gifts and even hand delivered some to my in-laws at Thanksgiving for those relatives I wouldn’t see over Christmas. So, for me, this brilliant idea didn’t make life easier but instead meant extra work returning everything. And as my non planner Fun sister-in-law on my side of the family said to me, “That’s what you get for buying things so early!” But this wasn’t my take away. More like I knew I’d have a funny story to tell my cabal of advance planning friends where we’d all roll our eyes in unison and say “Typical.” Oh wait, does that seem smug??

So no, this year’s advance planning fiasco will not deter me from doing the same thing next year and rolling the dice that a non planner in my life will trip up my well oiled Christmas machine. The only difference is next year I’ll be done by now. This year I was waylaid by pneumonia so with two weeks to go I have a few gifts left to buy plus my Christmas cards! So I didn’t have to do too much UPS returning. And yes, a bout with pneumonia is what it takes to bring my advance planning skills (along with most Classics, Organic Structures and Smart Structures) to their knees.