Patty C.'s Rules to Live By, Number Twenty-Five: Today Is Christmas. Here's to the Present.

Try to unwrap things slowly.

If you can't, and you rip through all the packages too quickly and find yourself in the middle of a big mess, and it's all over-- don't worry. That wasn't "it". It's going to be Christmas all day. We're going to keep sipping things and eating shrimp cocktail and tying bows on ourselves and the dogs down here at the bar for a few more hours before that mid-afternoon turkey dinner, After that, things will sort of die down until an evening Christmas party at Aunt Linda's. Just relax. There's more. You can take a nap if you need to. It'll still be Christmas when you wake up. Just sleep in your cocktail dress. If it's rumpled when you wake up, you can go back downstairs and root around the tree where everybody's opened presents are arranged in piles. Pull out something new, and go try it on. Chances are, it fits perfectly.