Lists are essential for Christmas

December is the season of the list.

Not just good boys and girls and checkin’ it twice and all that.

A dozen or more different kinds of lists.

In fact, it would be hard to list all the lists:

•Lists of presents to be mailed so they’ll arrive on time.

•Wish lists sent to Santa.

•Lists of decorations to be put up.

•Lists of Christmas parties and calendar complications.

•Lists of goodies to make for the neighbors.

•Lists of food allergies and other menu complications.

•Lists of the countless things you still have to do before the big day.

It goes on and on.

At our house, when it comes to Christmas, I am the list-maker.

That’s a reversal in roles when compared to the rest of the year. Connie has been making lists for most of our married life. But at Christmastime, I’m in charge of the master list.

It starts about the middle of November, at least in my head.

By Thanksgiving, it has moved to a legal pad that is routinely updated and altered and marked through.

Without a list, I’d be lost.

There are simply too many things to keep track of.

It would be easy if we simply opted to buy gift cards for those on the list. But that’s not the way things operate. Instead, there’s a very careful and conscious effort to make sure that the right gift gets to the right person.

Our teen-age nephew out in Arizona? Well, he’s been taking Samurai sword lessons for a couple of years with his father — I cannot explain that — so something Ninja or Samurai related makes sense. Those have been a hit in the past few years.

Our awkward adolescent niece in Long Island? She can be a challenge, since her birthday is in November, right before mine. The birthday gift had been a couple of great novels — Ali and Nino by Kurban Said and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe — that I thought she’d like. Christmas is a little tougher.

Our daughters are easier. We have a better handle on what they like and what they need.

And then, inevitably, there are the grandchildren. And this is where the list is indispensable.

Without a list, any grandparent could go hog-wild, over-the-top nuts.

The list — that trusty legal pad — keeps you on the rails a little better.

If you write down every present, you finally begin to get a grip. You finally begin to say, whoa!

But there’s just one complication.

Our youngest grandson was born on Christmas Eve. (Appropriately enough, he is named Gabriel.)

And that means a whole new list for the birthday boy.