Christmas comes twice a year for Bears general manager Jerry Angelo.
There's the traditional celebration on Dec. 25, then it comes again four months later in the form of the NFL draft for the 62-year-old supervisor of the Bears' recent past, as well as their present and future.
Angelo has spent months hoping and praying, wishing for some new shiny toys for himself and the Bears. He has made his list and checked it twice, three times, maybe 100 times.
Along the way, he has taken things off that list and added others to it. And, perhaps depending whether he's been a good boy, he'll get what he's been hoping for.
As Angelo prepares for his 29th NFL draft this weekend, you'd think he'd have tired by now of the long days and nights of preparation with the team's coaches and scouts, the endless hours of scrutinizing game film, going through medical and character reports on the more than 300 players who are draft-eligible, and the endless phone calls with fellow GMs around the league possibly interested in making some type of trade.
On the contrary, Angelo approaches this year's draft the way he has every other one he's been involved with: enthusiastic -- as though it was his first draft.
"Draft time is an exciting time for everybody," Angelo said. "You've spent so many hours, the man-hours of our scouts and myself, and then getting it down to a small list of players, recognizing those players, and now you're going to be in a position to be able to draft some of them.
"The excitement and anticipation of not knowing for sure which [draftees will still be available when it's the Bears' turn to pick], and then watch how that comes together, it's hard to really define unless you've really done this for a living. Each and every year it's challenging, and no two years are alike."
In Tuesday's pre-draft session with the Chicago media, Angelo joked about being able to sleep better heading into this year's draft after trading for Pro Bowl quarterback Jay Cutler.
But in reality, Angelo has played the NFL's version of "Wheel of Fortune" so long that there no longer are sleepless nights or angst, and his family doesn't have to avoid him like the plague, lest it interrupt his draft plotting.
"There's no real anxiety; there's an excitedness," Angelo said. "This will be my 29th draft. I'd like to think I'm getting better every year."
Angelo isn't self-serving when he says that. Since he came to the Bears in 2001, he has made several good picks, including guys such as defensive tackle Tommie Harris, cornerback Charles Tillman, linebacker Lance Briggs, cornerback Nathan Vasher, defensive end Alex Brown, cornerback Devin Hester, tight end Greg Olsen and running back Matt Forte.
But there's an old adage among general managers in the NFL that you're only as good as your last draft -- and last year's wasn't exactly stellar because of what happened to the team's No. 1 pick, Chris Williams, a decision that still likely haunts Angelo.
The Bears picked Williams 14th in the first round even though they knew going in that the Vanderbilt offensive tackle had a herniated disk, gambling that it would not affect him.
Wrong. On the second day of training camp in July, Williams pulled up lame with back spasms. Two weeks later, he had surgery to repair the disk, missing much of a season when he figured to see significant playing time even as a rookie.
Don't be surprised if Angelo and his staff are a bit more judicious in their picks this year, especially given that acquiring Cutler cost them their first- and third-round picks. The Bears have eight picks in the seven-round draft but have just one selection in the first two rounds (the 17th pick in the second round, No. 49 overall in the draft; plus, their only third-round pick is a compensatory spot).
"I feel good about the prospects of this year's class, understanding we're not looking for home run guys," he said. "You're not going to get a home run player with the 49th pick. We're realistic of that. We want to get a good quality player we can win with and fit one of the needs we're talking about."
Those needs are primarily at least one good wide receiver, offensive tackle and defensive line help. How many quality players at those positions will still be around when Angelo picks 49th, 99th and 119th overall -- the first three picks he has available -- remains to be seen.
"I don't think we're in the doldrums," Angelo said. "It's not like we don't have a résumé that we can't stand in front of our fans or [the media] and not feel respected by.
Angelo called obtaining Cutler -- despite having to give up high-round draft picks to do so -- "a big thing."
"I'm not underscoring that," Angelo said. "I see that, I know that, but again, that's what they hired you to do. We were fortunate, we had some good things happen for us and hopefully it was the right thing to do. Time will tell, and we're obviously very excited going forward."
When Angelo took part in his first NFL draft back in 1981 with the Dallas Cowboys, the selection process was much more primitive. Computers were just beginning to come into play; most teams made their picks from so-called war rooms at team headquarters, using index cards chock full of raw information on a potential draftee and pushpins to move them around a large bulletin board, signifying who was picked, who was still available and who was a last resort.
Today, teams have large computerized files on each draft-eligible player, most with a trove of minutiae, character traits and tendencies that rivals dossiers the CIA and FBI keep on criminals.
"The drafts have changed because there are 32 teams now and that's made it more difficult," Angelo said. "I think people are looking more at the ceilings of a player and what he could be, and not looking maybe at the worse, I use the term 'floor,' which is the worse he can be.
"I think what you're seeing right now, maybe the word 'reach' isn't the right word, but you see more of that going on now. Because on Sunday, we do know this: you need x number of players who can play over coaching. It's still a game of playmakers and speed, so you're not getting the players that maybe had the benefit of going through his full tenure and being developed like the old days, so to speak.
"It's made it more difficult that way because there's more projection going on, and I don't want to delve into the character issues and the money and how they've escalated, so it's become much more difficult to me to draft today's players."
The trade for Cutler has the potential to go down in team history as one of Angelo's defining moments. Of course, if Cutler has trouble adapting to the Bears system or doesn't even come close to matching the numbers he had at Denver (54 TDs and more than 9,000 yards in a little more than two full seasons as a starter), Angelo could be run out of town on a rail.
Getting Cutler is huge because you could go through an entire career without having a quarterback of his stature, Angelo said. "I've spent the better part of my career without one. I'd have to go back to Phil Simms [with the NY Giants in the 1980s]; that was the last one I was with.
"It's like the Super Bowl; you could be in this business a long time, be in good organizations, on good football teams, and never win a Super Bowl. It's very, very hard. If you took a poll, maybe you'd come up with 10 [quarterbacks] that you feel good about going into a season. It's a huge piece, and I've always said that each and every year."
Since the Bears won Super Bowl XX in 1986, the team's long-suffering fans have had to endure bad teams, average teams and good teams that just didn't have a quarterback the caliber of Jim McMahon. They finally have that in Cutler.
Although Angelo did expect some buzz in town when he made the deal, he admits he was a bit surprised at just how loudly -- and positively -- fans and Bears players alike responded to his bringing in Cutler.
"I really didn't understand it until after the fact," Angelo said. "I was really taken back by [the fan reaction]. I'm not a Chicagoan. I certainly understand the importance of the position."
Angelo added that he also felt bad about the past 20 years, when there was a string of mediocre talent calling the signals for Chicago.
"They told me it's about defense and running the football," Angelo said, laughing. "It's kind of what we stuck with. But, I'm glad for our fans and certainly for our football team. Let's just hope [Cutler] plays close to expectations."
And if Cutler takes the Bears to a win in the Super Bowl in February, it'll be like Christmastime all over again, with Angelo playing Santa Jerry.
"No thank-yous are in order," Angelo said. "It's doing your job; that's the bottom line. That's my job. When they brought me in here, they brought me in here to be the best we can be."
Jerry Bonkowski is a columnist for ESPNChicago.com.