Dec. 1: Blanch carcass from Thanksgiving turkey. Spray-paint gold, turn upside down and use as a sleigh to hold Christmas cards.

Dec. 2: Have Mormon Tabernacle Choir record outgoing Christmas message for answering machine.

Dec. 3: Using candlewick and hand-gilded miniature pine cones, fashion cat-o'-nine-tails. Flog gardener.

Dec. 4: Address sympathy cards for all friends with elderly relatives, so that they're all ready to be mailed the moment death occurs.

Dec. 5: Get new eyeglasses. Grind lenses myself.

Dec. 6: Fax family Christmas newsletter to Pulitzer committee for consideration.

Dec. 7: Debug Windows 95.

Dec. 10: Finish needlepoint colostomy bag cozy.

Dec. 11: Buy some cockroaches from the less fortunate; decorate eggs.

Dec. 12: Update enemies list. Place in hermetically sealed vault.Remove air,replace with nitrogen.

Dec. 13: Visit crematorium. Collect dentures. They make excellent pastry cutters, particularly for decorative pie crusts. Dec. 14: Install plumbing in gingerbread house.

Dec. 15: Replace air in minivan tires with Glade "Holiday Scents" in case tires are shot out at the mall.

Dec. 17: Childproof the Christmas tree with garlands of razor wire. Dec. 19: Adjust legs of chairs so each Christmas dinner guest will be the same height when sitting at his or her assigned seat. Dec. 20: Dip sheep and cows in egg white and roll in confectioner's sugar to add a festive sparkle to the pasture.

Dec. 21: Outfit neighborhood rats with tiny antlers.

Dec. 22: Float votive candles in toilet tank.

Dec. 23: Seed clouds for white Christmas.

Dec. 24: Do my annual good deed: Go to several stores. Be seen engaged in last-minute Christmas shopping, thus making many people feel less inadequate than they really are.

Dec. 25: Bear son. Swaddle. Lay in color-coordinated manger scented with homemade potpourri.

Dec. 26: Write and mail Christmas thank-you's. Order cards for next Christmas.

Estimate number of cards needed by allowing for making new friends and actuarially appropriate death rates for current friends and relatives. Dec. 27: Build snowman in exact likeness of God. Dec. 31: New Year's Eve! Give staff their resolutions. Call a friend in each time zone of the world as the clock strikes midnight in that country.