Pare your Total Cost of Christmas by ordering up the inexpensive things first and bringing in costly workers last. If you adhere strictly to this principle, the order of your gifts will be: partridge, milking maids, hens, turtledoves, geese, pear trees, drummers, golden rings, pipers, calling birds, lords, ladies, and swans.
When you reorder the gifts in this way, the partridges still come first ($10 per partridge, $120 for all 12 days) and that's good. But so does one milking maid. The pear trees don't arrive until Day Five (where will the partridges perch?). And � ���"seven golden rings� �� � will never do.
So this reordering rule needs a little refinement. Luckily, you are a Conservative so departing from the rules when it suits your purpose and pocketbook is not a problem. That gives rise to the next principle.
Third, further re-order the gifts as needed to selectively preserve the traditions you value.
Selective tradition is important to Conservatives. For example, they love the American tradition of sending young citizens to war. But they don't think so much of the tradition of paying for wars. They revere the Second Amendment but blow off 12,000 firearm-related murders a year. � ���"Selectivity� �� � is key to this principle.
Selectively preserving tradition is essential to maintaining the status quo, which Conservatives righteously refer to as � ���"the American way of life.� �� � (You don't have health insurance? Too bad for you, but we can't jeopardize the American way of life just for you.)
But never mind any of that. Reorder the gifts so that the partridge and the pear tree arrive on Day One. Be sure the calling birds arrive on Day Four (you'll see why in a minute). Then rejigger things a little more so your True Love receives the golden rings on Day Five. You have to do that to preserve the best part of the song � ��" � ���"Fiiiiiive gol-den rings� �� �.
Beyond those gifts, you can shuffle the various presents around in just about any order you please, as long as workers come last � ��" most people don't know all the words to the song anyway (they're like you with The Star-Spangled Banner). Just get the first and fifth verses right and you'll be home free.
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