A nurse’s survival guide to holiday gift shopping

Not to be a grouch (because it’s the holiday season, after all!) but shopping while juggling a wacky nurse’s schedule can feel like merciless torture. Take the list below with a grain of salt (I’m mostly just venting) but you may notice a few nuggets of genuine advice. Here goes…

A nurse’s survival guide to holiday gift shopping

1. Shop online. BOOM.

2. If you must go out to the stores, do it on a Wednesday, at 2 p.m. Most likely the older folks are off to dinner and the parents are picking the kids up from school.

3. Delegate. As much as possible. Then, if it doesn’t get done, you get to blame the four-year-old to whom you delegated the Christmas shopping for tasks unfinished.

4. Get a prescription for Ativan just in case you have to go shopping on any other day and time than Wednesday at 2 pm.

5. Bring back the “Your present is in the mail” line. Then, when it doesn’t get there, blame it on the post office person. Blame it on the economy. Or like Milli Vanilli, blame it on the rain.

6. Give everyone you know a fruit cake. Tell them it’s really expensive, vintage fruit cake.

7. Carry a flask of something that can give you the tingles in your bag or pocket. Use if you have to go shopping on any other day and time than Wednesday at 2 p.m.

8. Get everyone on your list gift cards from the supermarket. Shopping can be done in less than twenty minutes.

9. Take an Ativan and a swig of your flask in case you have to go shopping on any other day and time than Wednesday at 2 p.m.

10. The best way to survive the holiday gift shopping is…schedule yourself to work. Depending on your family, 12 hours dealing with Code Browns and Hard Restraints may be the most relaxing thing you’ve done all year.