Christmas is almost here and if you’re like me, you’ve again waited until nearly the last possible moments to do any shopping.

Every year, I tell myself that THIS YEAR will be the one when I finally do all of my Christmas shopping ahead of time. And why not? Like a lot of people, I have an Amazon account so I can have just about anything delivered to my front door in a day or two.

So you’d think I’d have burned through my list, checked it twice and ordered all those gifts back in September or October at the latest.

You’d think that. But you’d be wrong.

So here we are, a week from Christmas (as I write this) and once again, I am as unprepared as ever. By the time you read this, we’ll be even closer to Christmas and I’ll probably still have shopping to do and since I’ve wasted so much time, I’ll have to do the unthinkable.

I’LL HAVE TO ACTUALLY GO TO A STORE A FEW DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS!

I can’t tell you how much I don’t want to battle the traffic, joust with other last-minute shoppers over the last trinket on the shelf, then wait in line to check out and battle traffic all the way home.

Why do I do this every year? It’s probably the same reason I watch the Browns every week from September to January when I know full well it’s not going to end well. I’m a creature of habit and one of my worst is procrastination.

In some ways, spending 39 years in this business has forced me to adapt. If nothing else, newspaper work is about making an endless series of deadlines. I learned early that there is nothing worse than missing a deadline, whether it’s a deadline for a story you’re writing or a page you’re designing.

So I’m used to those sorts of deadlines. The cure for procrastination in this business is the fear of the shame that will come when you miss a deadline, the presses don’t start on time and your name is mud for a while.

Those repercussions don’t really exist when it comes to Christmas gifts, unless someone in my family and circle of friends reads this and realizes that my “thoughtful” gift of slippers and a giant bag of Skittles — purchased as a last desperate act at 6:58 p.m. on Christmas Eve at Walgreens — was not quite as I presented it.

(Not to worry. I strive to make this column as boring and uninteresting as I can so that the people I care about won’t be tempted to check it out, so I’m safe.)

But while I still have a lot of gifts to find, I have put together a few items for some folks and entities on my list:

Jimmy Haslam — What to get a guy who probably uses $100 bills as bathroom tissue or to light a cigar while he laughs about the loyalty of miserable Browns fans? A football guy to employ in the team’s front office … a guy who will draft a quarterback who doesn’t have more sexual assault accusations than touchdown passes and can throw a football more than five yards.

Ryan Day — An offensive game plan that actually involves throwing the ball to one of Ohio State’s future NFL receivers tonight against Tennessee. Barring that, a new job.

Nick Chubb — An offseason of rest for his broken foot and the ability to cut like he did before Minkah Fitzpatrick ruined his knee unnecessarily in 2023.

Minkah Fitzpatrick and the Steelers — Lumps of coal, as always.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine — The wisdom to pick a solid replacement for outgoing Sen. J.D. Vance.

President Joe Biden — Pardon me, who? Just kidding. We wish Joe all the best in his retirement from politics. Does he know that he has been retired from politics?

President-elect Donald Trump — The ability to learn from the self-inflicted wounds of his first term so that the next four years won’t be the disaster that the anti-Trumpers keep saying is coming.

A certain Valley politician — The Lifebuoy treatment that Ralphie received in “A Christmas Story.” And that’s all I have to say about that.

Democrats — The ability to learn from their sweeping defeats at the local, state and federal levels on Nov. 5. There are reasons the election went the way it did and it wasn’t because they failed to get their message out. I know people who would rather die than vote for a Republican, and they went for the GOP in a big way this year.

Those in need of organ transplants — I pray that all in need of life-saving transplants will get the call that a new heart, kidney, lung or whatever they need is available. As I mentioned last week in this space, I was fortunate to receive such a gift three years ago and my hope is that others will too. If you aren’t already an organ donor, please consider being the angel someone needs if you can or if the unthinkable happens and you die suddenly. Your act could save multiple lives.

Everyone — Merry Christmas, happy holidays and Happy New Year! Thanks for reading.

Ed Puskas is editor of the Tribune Chronicle and The Vindicator. Reach him at 330-841-1786 or epuskas@tribtoday.com.