Just one more day! And then it’s Christmas. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!

Then everyone can stop being so grouchy and snarly, take off the shopping helmets and shoulder pads, stop burning through screens, quit sentry duty against porch pirates and finally GET SOME SLEEP.

Then we all can return to being merely pleasantly cranky — like usual. Well, right after another round of hollering, shoving and stomping to exchange all our Christmas presents on Tuesday, anyway.

And then none of us will have to be crabby again until sometime in January when the bills come due.

For such a happy season, we humans sure have a knack for complicating it with hustle, bustle, tension, competition, diet and budget busting, and all the other things that make us the most intelligent creatures on earth.

A pig, for example, couldn’t do this. Throw a pig into some mud and he will roll around in it, sigh and doze off to sleep with nothing to do but dream big, happy pig dreams until the farmer brings him supper.

If pigs had any intelligence at all, they would know to rush out for the best sale price on a shop vacuum, suck up the muck, call landscapers to redo the sty, and install doorbell security systems to warn them if the dog is coming over to do what dogs do on fine grass.

The hogs would stay awake nights anyway in case the alarm doesn’t work, and worry that the farmer will toss them chow that isn’t the low-fat, gluten free, keto-friendly slop that is getting so much attention on all the talk shows.

Unlike humans, pigs just don’t know how to enjoy themselves.

Or consider the grizzly bear. He is of such an inferior intellect that he never once charges through 37 malls during the final week of Christmas shopping madness to find the last remaining fly orb, Furby or pink Barbiemobile.

This is a tragic loss. The grizzly would have a natural talent for jostling through the frenzied crowds to claim the last of these hot toys of the season. In fact, he probably could convince other shoppers to give him a hand — and possibly a foot or whatever else he might wish to snack on.

But no, that dumb ol’ bear just sleeps through the whole Christmas season and makes no apologies for it. Where is the serenity in that?

Only the human animal knows true joy. Just give us some happy festivity, such as a wedding or Christmas, and we gladly turn into the most surly and dangerous of all critters.

I have been giving this a lot of thought — it was either that or try to wrestle that infuriating wrapping paper and a gallon of tape over presents — and I think I know why we get so grumpy at Christmas. It is because we are forced to practice restraint.

I am referring to all those gifts under the tree with our names on them. Children can rely on their parents to yell at them to keep their mitts off the presents. But adults must discipline themselves. Talk about seasonal ugliness. No wonder we are so tense and grumpy this time of year.

I think I’ll just go curl up beside that grizzly bear. Wake me when it’s over.

• The truth is that Cole forgot to do his Christmas shopping and is setting up his excuses. Growl at the ol’ grizzly at burtseyeview@tribtoday.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.