Vice President Kamala Harris said in an interview in October that people should start buying Christmas gifts immediately.

This was troubling because she wasn’t necessarily advising shoppers to plan ahead but instead was issuing a warning about her anticipated shortage of stuff to buy for Christmas. Dock workers are on strike. Trucking companies can’t get enough drivers. Manufacturers have cut back and stores are running out of stuff.

I just wondering what you could buy two months before Christmas for gifts. We still have that fruitcake from 2018 that we’ve tried to re-gift three times with no success.

You wouldn’t to get a puppy in October to give to someone at Christmas. They like to poop and pee in the house and they might like you better than the recipient in their “forever home.”

When our kids were little, sometimes we bought Christmas gifts early but that didn’t always work out. One of our kids was captivated by Christmas and would search our house routinely to see if some unwrapped toys could be found. They were uncovered one year and that created a problem.

(By the way, when our kids were real little, they would come running into our bedroom at 5 a.m. to wake us up to start opening presents. So we set up a rule – if they wake us up before 7 a.m., we wouldn’t open any gifts until December 26. How’s that for being mean? By the way, it worked like a charm.)

There are some gifts that are so big that you can’t buy them early. Kids can figure out a bowling ball, a pogo stick and a pony really quickly. Anything that is hard to wrap, like lamp in the shape of a woman’s leg, would be a dead giveaway. So you have to hide those early gifts at a friend or relative’s house and then it becomes a problem because their kids might discover them and think that is what they are getting.

It’s no fun opening gifts if you already know what those gifts are. I like to the look of surprise when people open gifts, especially when it is something they want. And that’s the problem buying stuff on lists on Amazon.com. The recipient pretty much gets to pick their gifts and you can actually check your lists to see if someone has bought a particular item.

But if you don’t create a list for yourself, some will complain that they have no idea what to buy you. And that means you might get duplicate stuff, clothes that don’t fit or stuff that you really, really, really don’t like.

Back before Amazon, our son got two identical sweater vests from two different people (and he was already wearing a sweater vest that was very similar.)

My goal is always for people to open up a gift from me and smile and genuinely say, “I can’t believe you got this for me” or “how did you know I really wanted one of these?”

I have mixed feelings about giving money as gifts for Christmas. I always try to add a financial gift for a wedding or a graduation. And I certainly don’t begrudge someone who can’t conveniently shop to give cash. There have been times when that cash came in very handy.

It just seems strange if you sat in your living room and everybody gave everybody else a $20 bill for Christmas. That would alter the mood.

And you don’t want to buy clothes for kids for Christmas two or three months ahead of time. They grow at different rates and they might grow out of them quickly. Plus, fall clothes might not be warm enough in January. When I was a kid, I loved getting clothes as I got older but not for Christmas or my birthday – especially if I didn’t also get some toys. There may be some families who are strapped and have to give clothes instead of toys for Christmas but try to see things from a child’s perspective.

I will surely buy some Christmas gifts in November – even on Black Friday – because the sales are so good and even when Joe Biden isn’t president, hot items can sell out pretty quickly. (I won’t get up at 5 a.m. to go shopping, though).

And since we are empty nesters, we don’t have to worry too much about kids uncovered hidden stashes of unwrapped Christmas presents.

If Kamala Harris and Joe Biden really wanted to brighten Christmas, they would stop dismantling America’s oil and natural gas industry and let Americans heat their homes and drive their cars without going bankrupt this Christmas.

I don’t think anyone will give Dr. Anthony Fauci a beagle puppy this Christmas.

Also, the fruitcake is probably still edible but it smells funny.