Hey there, folks! Welcome to the 2014 holiday season! You probably should have started preparing months ago, around January 15^th, but hey, Netflix isn’t going to watch itself, am I right? I mean, sure, all those hours of watching Breaking Bad won’t get you a closet full of perfectly wrapped presents, a gourmet Christmas dinner, or even a token holiday boyfriend to show off to your judgey aunt, but isn’t that Walter White just a hoot? All that meth dealing to make money when my sister Mary could have shown him how to feed his family of four on just $5 a week!

But don’t you fret. I have all the holiday wisdom you need to make it through this year and straight on into 2015. And of course, now that you know better, you should start prepping for next Christmas as soon as you get through this one. Here are my tips for a holly, jolly Christmas. They’ll help you through economic insecurity, your family’s judgmental questions, and even your racist great-uncle’s glowering stare at your new Italian boyfriend!

1.      I shouldn’t even need to say this, but the only way to fund a full a holiday meal is extreme couponing. Now I’m no pro like my sister, so I’ll leave the teaching to her, but there’s no need to pay more than 25 cents for any one food item. Ever. You’d be amazed at what a delicious holiday meal you can make with expired meat, dented, canned tomato sauce, and the Goldfish that are on special this week. And any whiners will be reassured with a tasty dessert: 2 for 1 yogurt that also has a half off coupon!

2.      Extreme couponing is also a great way to save on gifts. Sure, your 15-year-old daughter may be upset that all she got this year was a 25 pack of Charmin, but she’ll need to wipe up all those tears with something, won’t she?

3.      If you do plan on buying “real” gifts, make sure to take advantage of shopping holidays. Not just Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday, but other national holidays, too. You’ve already missed Memorial Day, the 4^th of July, Labor Day, and Columbus Day, but what about Veteran’s Day? All of those soldiers didn’t fight and possibly die just so you could miss out Macy’s One Day Only Veteran’s Day Sale and the chance to save 30% off when you spend $150 or more on your Macy’s credit card. God bless America, indeed!

4.      Now that we’ve gone over how to save some dough this holiday season, let’s move on to something more important: making your terrible life seem enviable to all of your former high school classmates and distant family members. First off, you’re going to have to work on improving yourself RIGHT NOW. Thanksgiving is just three weeks away. That gives you three weeks to get yourself ready to make Billy the quarterback rue the day he decided not to ask you to prom when he runs into you at your hometown supermarket or, better yet, the local dive bar. It’s best if you start dieting and hitting the gym really hard. I know “body positivity” is all the rage right now, but flat abs never hurt anyone, now did they? And while you’re on the elliptical, why not practice making your job sound way more important than it is? Here are some businessey acronyms to get you started: B2B, KPI, IPO. I also recommend replacing “assistant” with “associate” and “waitress” with “customer service representative.”

5.      If you’re single, NOW is the time to start looking. If you’re still single on Thanksgiving, you’re practically guaranteed to spend New Year’s Eve alone, clutching a bottle of cheap champagne and softly crying in a corner while all your friends proclaim their love with a midnight kiss. So download no fewer than five dating apps on to your phone, but don’t stop there. Join singles social sports leagues, singles Meetup groups, and go speed dating at least once a week.

6.      If you’ve followed my tips so far, you should be ready for a great holiday season. But don’t forget that while you’ve embarked on a path of money saving and self-aggrandizement, your family hasn’t changed. So when your grandmother asks why you didn’t bother to comb your hair, or your mother asks you where the bottom half of your mini skirt went, or your great uncle tells your new boyfriend that he looks “terroristy,” don’t forget the number one way to get through the holiday season with grace and poise: booze!

7.      Most importantly of all, enjoy yourself! After New Year’s passes it’s just months of bleak weather leading into tax season. And the start of next year’s holiday preparation, of course!

Being a Republican turkey isn’t easy. I mean, sure, there are a few of us, but we, as a species, are naturally inclined to stick on the side of liberal vegetarian hippies. Because, well, hippies would rather have some nice, scrumptious tofurkey on Thanksgiving than roast one of us up. So, normally, as a token of our appreciation, we go blue.

But someone has to stand up for fiscal responsibility! And morality! And the traditional American family unit! I can’t just watch my core values being flushed down the toilet by this administration just because libs are less likely to think I’m delicious.

My story is a simple one: I was born into privilege. One of 30 turkeys chosen to be raised in Missouri, and trained to withstand the glare of the media’s camera, to not run in fear from throngs of onlookers, even to gobble on command. One of us was destined for greatness: a presidential pardon. The rest shared the destiny of all turkeys: a Thanksgiving serving platter. The chosen one would don the adorable name “Liberty.” After eighteen weeks of this training, I was chosen and at a mere nineteen weeks old I was granted a presidential pardon in November 2011. The only problem? I hate that commie bastard, Obama.

I’ve always said that I would rather be decapitated, plucked, gutted, roasted and served to a welfare family of four before I would let that commie save me. But, as it turns out, talk is as cheap as the clean coal technology that Obama has consistently denied funding. Because the minute they picked me-ME!-to hold the throne of Liberty, the pardoned turkey, I was in. I didn’t even mind when I was told that, Peace, another turkey from my class of 30, was going to be spared too. I also wasn’t really that surprised that two of us were spared, only to be put up in Mount Vernon for the rest of our lives. It was just like that Obama to hand out an extra pardon with no thought to the extra burden it would cause on American taxpayers. I mean, those pimped out turkey coops they keep us in for the rest of our lives aren’t cheap. I should know.

After I was chosen, though, I could sense that there was a lot of resentment amongst my fellow Republican turkeys. There was a lot of gobbling about how I had given up my ideals in the face of a slightly longer life. Slightly longer because, let’s be honest, I may have made it through the vigorous media training that comprised the first nineteen weeks of my life before the pardon, but it’s unlikely that I’ll see two years beyond my pardon with breasts this large. Heart disease isn’t just for humans. But I digress.

The point is, to all of those nay-sayers, those gobbling conservative turkeys who felt so betrayed when I accepted my pardon (all of whom ended up as the delicious main course at a Thanksgiving dinner, I might add), I didn’t sell out. Not really. I mean, sure, SURE, fine, I accepted a government handout, directly from President Commie Obama himself. I guess when you put it that way it sounds kind of bad, kind of out of step with the party line.

But the way I see it, from here in Mount Vernon, home of one of our greatest founding fathers, my seeming defection from the party line, from the orders to refuse to work with Obama even if it results in extreme bodily harm, was really just a reiteration of my core conservative principles. I mean, think about it! I was CONSERVING my life. Because I’m conservative like that. Get it?

Seriously, though, if that argument doesn’t work for you, let me assure you that, although it is true that I did accept an official presidential pardon from one Mr. Barack Obama, it wasn’t really that much of a handout, okay? I mean, I’m a major draw here at Mount Vernon. You think all these folks are stopping by just to see how Washington lived? I don’t think so. I have to strut my stuff every day to bring in the crowds. Being this pretty and this big while still somehow managing to move isn’t the easiest job in the world, you know.

The way I look at it, I didn’t really abandon my party; I just answered a call to service for my country. Okay, so I’m not exactly defusing bombs in Afghanistan or anything, but I still wake up every morning ready to serve—and not in the ready-to-serve sliced way most of my fellow turkeys find themselves. Plus, don’t you think it’s a little TOO coincidental that I found myself alive in a swing state for an election year? Voting booths don’t tamper with themselves.