I’ve always loved Christmas. As a kid, of course, I was all wound up about it. I remember that one time, to keep myself awake waiting for Santa, I finger-spelled every song in The Sound of Music. Alas, I eventually grew up, and though like C.S. Lewis I have no fear of childishness, I can’t make myself a child again. The night-before-Christmas anticipation that I used to experience has long since faded. Now I just enjoy the general merriment and sing-songery that lasts from Thanksgiving to New Year’s.

So last night, when proper Christmas-Eve jitters seized me for the first time in decades, I barely knew what to do with myself.

“My galleys are coming,” I told my husband. “Tomorrow. They’re coming tomorrow. The UPS update says that they’re coming between 9 and 11:30.”

I had a hard time getting to sleep, and this morning, I woke up at 5. Like a kid on Christmas morning. Only Santa doesn’t have a sleigh, kids, he has a fleet of brown planes and trucks, and according to Santa’s super fancy web site, as of 5:51am, my present is already scanned and out for delivery.

It’s 6:39am as I write this.

WOE BETIDE the UPS truck if it gets here after 11:30.

I am going for a walk.

I went for a walk with my family. It was rainy. We came home. My son and I have built every Lego. Every train track. I’ve worked out some anticipation on the treadmill. It is 9:12. YOU HAVE TWO HOURS AND 18 MINUTES, TRUCK.

I know I sound crazy. But after ten years of work, and whole lot of patience, to know that there is now a very short and finite period of time before I’m holding, not quite my book, but a pretty close approximation in my own hands?

I SOUND CRAZY BECAUSE I FEEL CRAZY.

9:44am: HAPPINESS:

I love the team at Scholastic. They are amazing. 

Cheryl Klein, Sharismar Rodriguez, Elizabeth Starr Baer, Elizabeth B. Parisi, and Shannon Rice are amazing. Iacopo Bruno – also amazing. I know I am leaving out a lot of people whom I have not met or heard of yet and who had a hand in this, and they are all AMAZING. 

All I can do right now is look at this beautiful book, and page through it, and realize that it’s real.  THANK YOU, EVERYBODY.  YOU ARE AWESOME. 

*KISSES THE WORLD*