DECEMBER 16, 1960
Ferd Feeze Finds Yule Exasperating
Don't believe what they say about not putting off until tomorrow what you can do today. It doesn't always pay to be early.
Take my friends, Ferdinand Feeze. Last year Ferd rushed through the Christmas season madly, dashing from store to store, addressing cards right up to the last minute. By the time the holidays were over, Ferd was a nervous wreck.
So this year he decided he would play it smart and do everything ahead of time. No more rushing for him.
He bought all of this year's Christmas cards last January and leisurely addressed them. By March, he had every card sealed, addressed, and stamped. He stashed them away in a desk drawer, thinking that, for once, he was going to be the first to send his cards. He was 100 per cent correct. As his mother told him in July, "I saw that all those envelopes in your desk were ready to send, so I did you a favor and mailed them."
Throughout the year, Ferd was on the lookout for Christmas gifts for people on his list, including about six cousins. By September he had his shopping done and the gifts wrapped. It wasn't until December that his mother informed him that his cousins had agreed to stop exchanging gifts-it was too much trouble, she said.
Ferd decided to take one last crack at the whole problem. Knowing that he would be required to write a Christmas theme for English-his teacher had warned the class in September-Ferd began working on it well before Thanksgiving. He completed it on December 13. The next day the teacher changed his mind about the theme.
The year hasn't been a total loss for Ferd, however. The last time I saw him he was addressing cards. He thought he finally had the problem licked. He's going to build a bomb shelter and go underground every Christmas.