It has begun, officially.

Chris and Michelle are here. The Little Kids are here. The tree has too many gifts underneath it, and Santa has not yet arrived.

We all Facetimed with my mom, which led to TW’s mom asking us HOW we’re able to do that… we said, “You press the Facetime button” which was not what she meant. She seems to want to know HOW it works. Or what magic allows it to happen. Or the science around it. Or something.

Skeeter has finally decided that Christopher is OK. Probably. She’s also decided that she might like this Christmas thing. The peoples keep saying YES! and giving her treats. There are many hands to give belly rubs. People leave their mail out where she can get it and she really loves eating Christmas cards.

We just have a few gifts left to wrap, which feels really nice — every time I think about it.

The first batch of Christmas cookies have been eaten completely — The Peanut Butter Blossoms. RJ is messing up my kitchen, making Jim Bars. The Mint Sugar Cookies that Saved My life have been baked. We’ll decorate them tomorrow, which is when the fun really happens.

A perfect holiday is in full swing. The only things missing are Jenn, Teddy and JMP… and Michelle’s “Baby’s First Christmas” ornament. I bet one of her siblings found it and hid it from her. Wanna bet?

See? Perfect Christmas.

Michelle Belle arrives tomorrow. Chrissy arrives Sunday. I’m very excited about both of these things. VERY excited.

The little kids come home on Sunday, too. I’m also looking forward to that, though it will mean things get really loud and even messier than they are now.

On top of the wood particles and shredded paper and dog toy stuffing scattered around the house by Skeeter, we’ll have kid stuff everywhere (at least until Skeeter starts shredding it) and there will be food messes. Lots and lots of food messes.

I’m going to be very busy enjoying the mania. And I really do plan on enjoying it. Just sitting on the sidelines watching and listening and even yelling at them all to “CLEAN THAT UP!” or “STOP EATING FOR GODSAKES!” or “TURN THE TV DOWN!” will be a joy.

As I sit here in anticipation of all of that fun, I’ve come to a decision. I’m going to break with tradition and…

I’m going to wrap the bulk of the Christmas presents tonight, before the kids come home, rather than doing it all on Christmas Eve.

For 30 years I’ve wrapped Christmas gifts on Christmas Eve, staying up late into the night to do it — not this year. Nope. I’m going to get the bulk of it down now and relax on Christmas Eve. That’s gonna be weird. Really weird, but the very idea of it is making me feel all warm and sparkly inside.

Do you wrap gifts as they arrive? Or wait until the last minute to do the wrapping?

I’ve never been good at staying organized for Christmas. Gifts get tossed into closets or drawers or cabinets or corners and I always think I know where everything is — but I never do.

I always have to go searching for some elusive something that arrived at an odd time so I tucked it away… somewhere.

Or I’m sure I put THAT in the PLACE where I keep ALL of the gifts but on Christmas Eve, that thing is MISSING and I’m tearing up the house in search of that thing I know we bought and gah! So stressful.

I’m usually pretty good at finding all of the things that need to be mailed to family members and this year I was pretty sure that was going to be the easiest part of Christmas. Because I decided not to send a lot of gifts that I had to wrap and ship. I ordered fun food gifts for my mom and dad and brother and sister. I sent a package to my mom that included her missing birthday gift (See, it was already going downhill in October!) and a gift I never managed to mail months ago that turned into a good Christmas gift anyway. And of course, JMP’s stuff. Easy because I was putting it all in Prince J’s room because Prince J is in college and nobody is using his room (except the stray kids who stayed for one night.)

But no. Apparently I didn’t put all of JMPs things in there.

I found the Christmas stocking in the laundry room, the day after I mailed two huge boxes that cost a zillion dollars to ship to Hawaii.

Yesterday, I found a Christmas ornament for JMP and his parents hiding in the bottom of the K-mart bag of stuff we bought on Thanksgiving.

I’m a little afraid to dig around in THAT place where I keep the gifts to see what else I’ve forgotten to ship.

I’m also really afraid of Christmas Eve. This is going to be the year that I can’t find a bunch of really important things — I can feel it.

Next year, I’m going to have a better strategy for keeping gifts organized. It’s gonna take me six months to figure out what that strategy is — it might involve spreadsheets — but I’m going to do it.

Damn it.