December brings lots of good tidings: Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, the solstice, New Years Eve, Festivus, and perhaps even the tail end of your Thanksgiving food coma. But let us not forget the December LSAT. It’s on its way just as surely as Santa in his sleigh.

No, that’s not right; the December LSAT is considerably more certain.

There’s relatively little time between this past Saturday’s October LSAT and the December LSAT. As such, if you intend to take the December LSAT, it’s time to get your butt in gear. Start your LSAT prep now. Don’t slack on that LSAT homework and think you’ll catch up later. There’s just too much to do in the next two months.

Even so, as long as you get to work you have enough time to get ready for the December LSAT. For now, focus on mastering the fundamentals. Learn how to diagram conditional statements like a pro. Become an expert at picking out all the points of view from an LSAT reading comp passage. Don’t let your pace become a concern yet. It’s far more important that you learn to get the fundamentals down pat. You can learn to do them faster later on.

If you took the October LSAT but cancelled your LSAT score, or if you prepped for the October LSAT but didn’t follow through with the test, you probably feel disappointed. You may not want to have anything to do with the LSAT for a while. But if anything, I think the short window between the October LSAT and the December LSAT is an advantage. Stick with it, and you can be done with the LSAT within two months.

Do your best to shake off the sting of the October LSAT. There’s nothing you can do about that now. Make plans to do something fun this weekend. Indulge yourself in whatever it is you like to indulge yourself in (as long as it’s legal).

Then focus that energy on getting as ready as you possibly can for the December LSAT. Don’t just keep doing what you were doing in the time leading up to the October LSAT. Slow down and review all the basics. Then, spend some extra time on all the areas that still give you trouble. Review and tweak your approach from the ground up. Keep in mind that redoing LSAT questions you’ve already done can be exceedingly valuable. Forget about pacing until you’ve addressed everything once over. Then, slowly try to bring everything back up to game pace. Analyze your performance carefully on everything you do, tweak things as needed, and you’ll be ready to go in and rock the December LSAT.