We each pull a mattress from the pile Nonna keeps on the shelf in the corner. While Charlie pulls out the electric pump to blow them up, Olivia and I hunt down some blankets and pillows. I’m out the second I lie down.

When my little cousins come screeching through the room to wake us up two hours later, I feel like I’ve only slept for five minutes. It’s going to be a long day.

There are cinnamon rolls and blueberry muffins and coffee cake spread across the counter when Olivia and I squeeze into an open spot at the bar, pouring coffee down our throats and trying to wake up. The mood is chaotic. The littles are running around, their sticky fingers touching everything and everyone they pass while my aunts and uncles mill around the kitchen. Everyone looks ridiculous in our matching Christmas pajamas. Nonna finds a design she likes sometime in August and every group is responsible for each member of their family. Olivia and I only remembered to throw ours on just before we came downstairs.

This year’s theme is Santa on skis against a light blue background. Most of my aunts are wearing the long nightgown version while the uncles got pj bottoms and tops. Olivia and I are wearing sleep shorts with the T-shirt. The worst was the year she picked the onesies that made us all look like reindeer, including a hood with antlers attached. There are more than a few members of our family who should never wear onesies.

Once breakfast is done, it’s time for our next Christmas-morning tradition.

Last night, just like every other Christmas Eve, each branch picked their spot in the family room and stacked their gifts into small piles. Once the gifts were sectioned off, and notes and milk and cookies were left for Santa, the door to the family room was shut until morning.

Here’s where the brutal part comes in: No one is allowed in the room on Christmas morning until Nonna has two cups of coffee. And she drinks them slowly. So right now, all of the kids under the age of ten, lined up from youngest to oldest, are melting down in the hallway.

Olivia and I have moved to the table next to Nonna, where she’s sipping her coffee. Charlie still hasn’t gotten up, even though Uncle Charles keeps yelling his name from the bottom of the stairs.

“Is this decaf?” Aunt Patrice asks. She chose the pj’s that look like thermal underwear, and they leave nothing to the imagination. It was a bad choice.

“Heavens to Betsy, why would we make a pot of decaf?” Aunt Maggie Mae answers. Aunt Maggie Mae is dressed in black slacks and a green sweater — she’ll wear the pj’s to bed but refuses to stay in them — and her hair and makeup are perfect. She brings the Evil Joes each a cup at the other end of the table, where they’re sitting with their noses buried in their phones.

“We’re going to have to start renting out the banquet room of the Hilton, Nonna,” Olivia says. There’s not one inch of space in this kitchen that isn’t occupied with a human body.

“Oh, there’s plenty of room,” Nonna says, loving every minute of this.

Uncle Michael, who just walked down the stairs, makes a production of inching the door to the family room open and squeezing his head through the tight space. He stays like this for a few seconds, then pulls his head out and shuts the door. His eyes are wide and the kids are frozen in their spots, staring at him.

Here we go. The torture.

“Someone got a bike!” he yells, and the kids shriek.

Nonna rolls her eyes and takes another small sip from her cup, but she loves this part, too. I can remember when Charlie, Olivia, and I — along with the Evil Joes — were withering against the wall just like the little ones are now.

Not to be outdone, Jake says, “Pretty sure I saw a dollhouse in there. A pink one.”

The girls scream. Loudly.

My phone vibrates on the table and I flip it over to see a text from Margot.

MARGOT: What cup is she on?

I can’t help but laugh.

ME: Halfway through the second one. The littles are going nuts.

MARGOT: Just like you did

ME: How’s my niece this morning?

MARGOT: I just got back from seeing her. She’s gorgeous and I fell apart because I can’t hold her yet. Ugly cried. Now my boobs are hooked up to these pumps and like every other part of my body, they will never be the same.

ME: God, Margot, not the visual I need this early in the morning

MARGOT: The outfits are adorable. Of course Mom has a million questions about where they came from

ME: Sorry you had to lie to her

MARGOT: Small price to pay for the visit. Thank you for coming to see us. It was the perfect gift.

I scrub my hand across my face to brush away the tears that well up. Nonna watches me, then sets her cup down.

“I think I’m ready to go in,” she says.

Within minutes, there are paper and ribbon and bows whipping through the air like they’re caught in hurricane-force winds. It’s chaos, but the absolute best kind. Nonna circles the room, commenting on each gift she sees and delighting in the pandemonium. She stops next to me and whispers, “Your mother sent over a few things. She didn’t want you to be empty-handed this morning.” Nonna points to a small pile next to Olivia.

I stare at the packages with my name on them for several minutes before I start opening them, trying not to get too emotional. She got me the phone case I’ve been wanting, along with a new pair of boots and an assortment of my favorites from Sephora. I pop the old case off my phone and start wrestling on the new one.

Aunt Kelsey’s four daughters parade around the room in their new princess dresses while Denver and Dallas battle it out with Mary and Frannie with their new lightsabers. Uncle Sal’s son, Banks, is testing out his new guitar while Webb, who still isn’t wearing pants, is steamrolling over everything and everyone on his new hoverboard.

Olivia struggles to open the gigantic jar of bread-and-butter pickle slices. She gets a jar like this every year, and every year it’s the first thing she opens. When Olivia was five, she ate an entire container of these pickles at Aunt Kelsey’s house, so when Christmas rolled around that year, Aunt Kelsey gave her a huge jar of them. There’s just something about getting this ridiculously oversize jar every year that makes her so happy.

She pops one in her mouth and says, “I’m seriously going to need a nap later.”

“Yeah, maybe we can sneak away before lunch.”

Olivia looks at the mess around me, then nudges a small box toward me with her foot. “You forgot one,” she says.

Sure enough, there’s a small package wrapped in brown paper with my name on it. I tear off the wrapping and open the plain white box.

Inside, there is a silver bracelet with something hanging from it. I hold it closer so I can see what it is.

“Ooh! Is that a charm bracelet?” Olivia says.

“I think so.” And then it clicks. There are two letters hanging from it — an S and a G. Surely my mom would not have bought me this.

“There’s a card in the bottom of the box.” Olivia hands me a small square of paper.

I show Olivia the card, and her face scrunches up when she reads it. “Not sure what to think about that.”