There’s a small window of time between December 22 and December 24 that is probably the best time of the holiday season.

Your Christmas shopping is probably not done, but your Christmas parties and social obligations are fulfilled.

Folks switch from deciding how much rum will be needed for the eggnog for their party to doubling that amount for anticipated family gatherings.

Singles, couples and young families start the trek to Grandmother’s House via planes, trains and automobiles. Entire families and empty nesters head to a warm tropical place for that One Kind Of Holiday We’ve Always Wanted To Do.

The tree lights and yard decorations are left plugged in overnight by accident. Sparkly little boxes and brown-boxed Amazon packages start to take real estate under the tree.

The office becomes quiet as projects wind down, the push to get that last 2014 report out the door. Senior level folks disappear until after the new year.

Everyone is getting tired of the holiday sweets but can’t stop baking them. Plates of them show up in the office kitchen. Coworkers slip packages of sugary gratitude to each other. Some conspire together to raid the office box of chocolates.

Some folks pound out baked goods like it’s their job, each morsel a piece of perfection. Others try to recreate their mother’s baked goods from their childhood memories then stress out because they don’t come out the same, despite explicit instructions from Mom. Dad, once again, makes his rum cake a bit too strong, so much so that children shouldn’t breathe near it.

Horrifically funny photos of small children crying on Santa’s lap show up on Facebook.

Clever Elf On The Shelf pranks are abound. An Elf drowning in flour while trying to make a “snow angel”, GI Joe holding Elf hostage… the ideas are endless. And hilarious.

But after all the baking, cooking, working, traveling, wrapping, pranking, decorating and drinking, there’s that sweet spot. And it happens right about now. Between December 22-24.

That one moment when you think you need to think about everything and then suddenly – nothing. Your brain absolutely goes blank.

It’s probably a split second feeling. Or for five seconds. But it happens.

And then you embrace the anticipation. The good anticipation.

You know something is in the air, despite whether you’re a believer of Santa or the Grinch. You can’t avoid it.

And then you can’t help but smile a little. Then breathe. Then relax.

You look forward to the evening of Dec. 24. Not the 25th, but the 24th. When no more can be done. It is just physically, mentally, emotionally impossible to cram in anymore than you already have.

You can just… be.

It may be at 5 p.m. when driving to the store for the last time or midnight as you wait for Darlene Love to perform “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)” on David Letterman’s show. Or it may be those last few minutes before you head off to bed on Christmas Eve, when you admire the glowing tree a little longer, regardless if it came out of a Martha Stewart catalog or it’s an itty-bitty sweet Charlie Brown.

You know it will happen. It’s like a big mental sigh of relief.

You’re enjoying the holidays.